


Mala Fides

by TwistedNym



Series: Halfway Lies, Halfway Truth [2]
Category: Glass Sword- Victoria Aveyard, Red Queen Series - Victoria Aveyard
Genre: Background Relationships, Book 2: Glass Sword, Canon Compliant, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Other, Viper - Freeform, animos, everyoneisshitty, this story is hella dark, we switch POVs halfway through to Samson this time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:48:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 38
Words: 98,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22336564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwistedNym/pseuds/TwistedNym
Summary: 'ᴡᴇ ꜱʜᴀʀᴇ ᴀ ꜱᴇɴᴛɪᴍᴇɴᴛ. ɪ ᴄᴀɴ ʙᴇ ʙᴏᴜɢʜᴛ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʙʟᴏᴏᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ʀᴇᴠᴇʀᴇɴᴄᴇ.'Only one month has passed in Daliah Viper's life trying to reintegrate at court and follow the uneasy trails her eyes have caught.One month filled with blood, tribulations, and lies. With new responsibilities and split loyalty between her family and the new hands clutching reign tightly as desperately comes a new opportunity, a new uneasy rule over her own house.And since Samson has his very own ideas of taking over, the alliance formed with her husband still stands shakier than anything...mala fides- bad faith; intent to deceive.
Relationships: Original Female Character & Evangeline Samos, Original Female Character & Maven Calore, Original Female Character & Ptolemus Samos, Original Female Character & Samson Merandus, Samson Merandus & Elara Merandus
Series: Halfway Lies, Halfway Truth [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1545163
Kudos: 17





	1. Concentrate

_concentrate_

_-to bring or direct toward a common center or objective_

_-to gather into one body, mass, or force_

_-to accumulate (a toxic substance) in bodily tissues_

* * *

_**W**_ e shake strapped in seats, and the only sounds penetrating the inside of the convoy is the fine rattling of metal or the shuffling of feet. The rustling of uniforms. The static shifting of a signal incoming on a radio.

Right next to me, Hector Viper sifts his fingers into his belt and smooths over it while he talks.

I barely listen with one ear, eyes glancing around, taking in the silent forms. The hardened faces. I barked general commands in Archeon. Now I have to leave the choice of positions and vantage points to people that are in the position to demand them.

I have as little power over anything that happens here as I had strapped to a wall in manacles, spitting and biting in a cell. It rubs me off the wrong way and tingles on my nerves. I feel incompetent. I don't like feeling incompetent _._ But such is the nature of soldiers in an army. We are disposable. _  
_

_We are disposable as the creatures we breed and the alliances we make.  
_

War makes widows. War makes corpses. War makes an army. War makes fighters.

This is the very machinery of war. I would consider this the drumbeat of it.

My vision rocks, staring out of the armored window into the world racing, a sky filled with dazzling clouds of smoke.

Ruins.

A city made of something broken but still standing longer than any bone could withstand turning to dust. A place that should be filled with something very much fouler than any smog or polluting light in Archeon.

Radiation isn't a joke. It was a warning graced on the search party in the tunnels. It was written on maps and mouths on how it twists and cripples. But this city is flawless and void of it, and any mention and warning was a lie.

I study the empty, crumbling stones in the distance.

 _Seemingly_ empty. But not yet. Not really.

It seems almost ironic that the force drips down over ruins and lies after swiping the rebels under the carpet of propaganda for so long. 

With the sliver of something unforeseeable and perhaps a hint of incompetence and a spark of too many emotions, everything has turned foul. That is why we are here, after the Bowl, after the abyss of mud, the lightning, the death of silver and the free fleeing of the Red.

I would laugh. If I felt like it.

Instead, I see myself, pushed back hair, scars fresh on my mouth and cheek.

One more, to the right, over my eye, and in the dim reflection without color, I could vaguely resemble a woman that spoke my name as her last breath.

A fist curls in my stomach, hot anger pulsing tightly.

Ellyn Macanthos didn't see me fit for duty at a front.

She wouldn't let everyone make decisions about her people's life without her.

She is gone. _Gone, gone, gone._

But she was a precise woman of war.

I never was. I'm feeling too old in my skeleton. But the truth is, I am painfully inexperienced in fights that go over the capacity of a few dozen.

My dislike about it has brought me this far. But in a delicate situation of strategic input, it is useless, asinine. However, the worst thing, just as Samson always told me: It can be exhaustingly repetitive.

Not that he would have any clue what to do. No, the bastard has sat his bony sharp ass inside my chair and will just hide in the distance until he can garner some remains and play his upper hands.

My palms around the rifle cramp and clutch tightly, as if the metal can save me from some foul trickery in my skull.

My dislike can't take anything from me now. All personal feelings have a place to be erased, hidden until enacted in savory blood and a nice price.

_But I'll cut Samson into tiny strips no healer can mend if he ever comes too close to my seat again. He may be my husband, but he doesn't deserve to even look at the chair. And he will never lead my house.  
_

"Lady Viper."

Hector's head to my right, moving into my personal space. I snap back. Swallow the chunk that is suffocating me down. Then I simply clutch my rifle again.

"I was just informed you're not going to stay with us."

I don't get to answer. The wheels stop turning abruptly and we halt. _  
_

If war has a smell, I can suck it into my nostrils and rub it on my skin now through the cracks in the door opens.

It's the fluttering distant smell that rises from the impact of missiles, rubbles, an impact in the silence breaking only with the sounds the wheels make as they scrape over the uneven path.

My brain connects imagery from earlier days in my life, mixes them with later ones. The flapping of the jets above, the hurling, lingering sounds of impact. The feet and the rubble.

The smell of bodies surrounding you. The smell of a gun before a shot is let loose. A finger lingering close to a trigger. The smell of water, earth, and death.

_We all smell that, sooner or later. We all get a taste of the scent._

"You'll inform me about any changes," I tell him, arching my back, posture straight. "I want to know where you were. What you did. And who told you to do it."

Hector isn't one for smiling. Neither am I. But only for a second, we share some convenient nod.

Then, like a good underling and member of my House, he turns to shout commands in my namesake at the black flood of bodies, rifles, and the occasional addition of a creature that has teeth, wings, or another helpful feat. I left the dogs with my father. But they're not war trained anyway, even if they're close to it. They have cushions behind a bird cage now.

I have had bare contact with the black, sleek dog sitting beside one of the figures my dear relative just shouted at.

Hector's hardened hands point at people, orchestrating them like I am so used to orchestrate insects.

He points over to his son and to few figures silently standing to attention. I need a moment to recognize one is Loren, because he is neither miserable not terribly smug. He looks only concentrated right now, eyes narrow, keeping himself together. Somehow, I know, he doesn't want to be here, just the same as me. We both have our war stories. His made him spoiled, bratty, overcompensating and entitled. But that is another thought to keep for another day. I can't think about it now. He keeps it together, he keeps his worth. I will forever remember the fist crashing his nose fondly. Whatever his deeds.

"Stay with Lady Viper, take the escort her east, keep the communication open. You-with Provos. The rest of you with me." He motions over the hill of broken stone ahead.

As much as the smell and the nervous tingling tickles my scalp. Feeling bodies swarming around you that finally are under the restrictions of command and respect towards you and would have to shield you in case of an attack has some invigorating. 

* * *

I let a hawk loose in the breath of this world.

It rises from my gloved fist when I thrust upwards, disappears.

A tail feather fighting against gushes of waves as a silvery shadow with rotor blades drifts and sizzles overhead faster than the bird could ever be.

From the perspective of a drifting body in a cloud, the destruction is more visible with a schematic of tactic. Of making sure to encircle and capture as well as ruin what is left. Somewhere in the distance is the ocean.

With something akin to curiosity I realize this is the closest, I have ever been to it.

I can see where Hector and the other Vipers flank, and I see the mass of flooding bodies that get into positions.

The impacts of the missiles haven't stopped. We make way through empty streets. If there have been more people hiding, they are either burrowing deeper or have gone already. The ruins of this city are big. But silver soldiers are relentless.

The more I watch, the more I see the machinery working.

Some parts of the machinery aren't even soldiers. Just chained up bodies.

They're meat. Meat shields. Basically. Make a red rebel shoot a silver, they'll be happy. Make them shoot their own, make them shoot what they proclaim to want to save. If I hadn't killed my own kind and even extended family, I may be tempted to say this is a very decent psychological weapon.

_I suppose you could only make it more infecting and cruel if you stood exclusively children in the first row._

"They're flooding the tunnels," Loren notes, a crooked shadow falling over him from the wall of the much smaller ride we take.

I blink, still half bird. Eyes sliding and adjusting down. Dripping sounds overcome the silence, the eruptions and the sounds of speeding vehicles.

"Of course they flood the tunnels," I answer, more matter of fact than anything. Just to speak and be right, perhaps. We proceed without slowing down at the edges of the water taking back the underground. "The last times have proven that red rats like to hide there."

The sleek black dog is silent next to my other, far more removed Viper cousin.

I tilt my head slightly.

"Anything new?"

"One more minute," Is the answer, and his unnerving smart eyes look over the scars on my face back to the window. "There was commotion east. We are on the right trail. The dogs picked something up. But the contact on that side has been cut. We lost at least a few men."

"One more minute," Is my response, sinking into my seat, controlling my rifle. I see something else, something I didn't anticipate, but probably should have.

* * *

We have abandoned the vehicle for the last, cautious reach of the way.

The sizzling of constant updates from the other side of the buildings getting waltzed over and bending keeps me a little reassured. Magnetrons waltz below the metal and make a way. Of course.

And where there are metal benders, there's family I tend to look after.

And a family I owe for carrying me out of a hole filled with mud and not simply letting me bleed out.

The hawk soars down towards the mass of the machinery.

A moment, it blinks, not quite standing in the air but close enough, slow enough for a breath of time passing.

In the blackness of the uniforms and with a glimmer of silver hair, there's a very familiar frame.

The hawk flashes down, drifting in circles over their heads.

I lead the patrol and the escort follows me. I walk as tall as I can now.

I'm expected. All of this has happened in the heap of minutes. Like everything rushing by, it feels too far away, too long drawn out, and still too hectic.

Even if I try to stand tall, I sink into being very small next to my Samos cousin. I am forced to oogle up, and I remember how I had to leap basically to hug him.

Now, of course, we don't hug. He grazes me once, we share one boiling look.

It's good to know I am at least not the only person that turns everything into something angry in a second like this. And anger is better than fear.

"It seems I am your reinforcement again," I tell Ptolemus, holding my rifle ready for execution. This time though, I will not miss the chance to aim right and true. I won't fall into an abyss.


	2. Battue

_battue_

_-the beating of woods and bushes to flush game_

_also **:** a hunt in which this procedure is used_

_The battue is a technique practiced by hunters in order to give them a clean shot at their targets. The hunters' assistants (or sometimes the hunters themselves) rap sticks against trees and bushes in order to scare animals out of the woods and into open space. It derives from the feminine past participle of the French verb battre, meaning "to beat."_

* * *

_**T**_ he buildings are falling towers of a lost past. They crumble under the impact, the soaring hard waves of elements ripping their foundation apart. They quiver and tremble under the force of weaponry build by human hands.

Rubble and dust whirl around us in waves, getting carried by the sheer force of tumbling structures. It kisses my brow and leaves heavy flakes on my lashes.

I'm protected by the confidence that no sharp-edged piece of metal or a projectile will ever graze my skin. Tip of the legion. Reinforcement for both my cousins. And strangely enough, I would never have it any other way. My fear and all the hateful words for war machinery blur into a blurb of nervous energy in my stomach. 

_Not suited. Not accessible. Too rigid and too unstable._

I'm on the right flank almost right behind Evangeline now. Our bodies whip between rotting excess falling, exploding and burning, stones, steel, iron and the smell of war that seeps into my pores. Black armors and dark uniforms, we bleed into the very truest definition of dark tidings. 

I waltz through the ruins with six pairs of eyes. Skinwalking in the air, below our feet and running along the frontlines, my senses try to pick up signals and decipher them all the while I am still present behind the magnetrons. 

When I slip into the dog, the chase blares through my body, and I surrender willingly to it. The adrenaline pumps through my veins excited, and I feel invincible a moment. Hours ago I was almost dead, buried in a swamp of mud below an arena. Now I pledge myself to hunt the perpetrators. I can smell fear radiating from the very definition of the red row of meat shields. Fear and anger, the silver swarm is not scared of anything. The dog inhales the perfume of this twisted calvacade. 

The hawk glides over the tipping top of a tower, a sharp turn to the right, feathers adjusting in the aerial fight to steer clear. It lets loose a long drawn scream, but no one except me can hear it in the marching, the explosions and all the other noise of war.

Below the tower trembling, Evangeline's hand swipes away a shower of daggerlike splinters falling, out of my face, away from my scars, holding it back. 

For a moment my eyes are just mine alone, and I look at her face. A small line of something angry runs along her brow like a crack running through the skeletal forms of the monstrous steel buildings. I give her a nod. Her arm swings again and with force, the metal flings and crashes into the ground, impaling the earth.

We don't talk. There is no time to say a word. 

The words that get yelled throughout the devouring hunt are only commands. I don't need to command my people. Hector did the job before, and now they simply follow. Even Loren continues to follow me meekly and concentrated.

My hands around the rifle shake slightly. For a moment it feels too heavy, but I muster myself and stand straight.

_You had a promising career, Maven flattered me. A prodigy. Flawless fighter.  
_

He was right.

I am too old to falter. I won't ever. I will prove to my family and to anyone watching I am not crazy and I am capable. 

The silver swarm is deadly. Creatures just as lithe as any big predator and as poisonous as all my snakes and arachnids. The force of the whole army crushing the city is below what little manpower and stolen and acquired weaponry red rebels can muster. 

It is a sweep. They flooded the tunnels, they bombed the buildings, they follow through now to flush the prey out. 

The few unfortunate souls that are in the way get crushed until we finally find the mark. The real trophy. 

My senses, be they from any creature still on and around me or my ears themselves, pick up the signal of a shout and two words stand out. _'Lightning girl.'_

The hawk rushes along the edge of the biggest tower still crumbling and dancing in the tremors as if it was a simple grass of blade in the wind. In the eyes of a hawk and a woman, prey is prey.

As the eyes slide down and sharply, keenly, take in the running figures, I focus harshly. My bird soars over the clouds and shoots in a circle below. In the falling winds it slows again, swinging around. 

Full and good view. As the static shiver from the radio promised, and the shouting, my eyes prove it right.

_There you are._

They look small from above. But I recognize the battered forms. Bruised and battered, her clothes are broken, but at least she stands relatively tall. Even if she is as small framed as me.

One girl I have lingered and lurked around on court for a while, being told off and held back like a rabid dog, plans changed to a degree that makes me ally with mind readers and boy kings.

_False silver, something else. Abominable? Maybe. Impactful? Yes.  
_

The command to open fire has not yet been given. Not yet.

I stop in the rubble beside the falling embers of once glory. A city we were made to fear with lies. No radiation. No sickness and devastation. Just a lie. And now smoked out buildings and flooded tunnels.

The group pushes on a bit. I clutch the rifle. I stand above my family. Literally. 

I recognize the other face besides the miserable ragged form of the Lightning Girl. Because I had a good look at it in the heat of a fight. When I almost shot the blonde one with the red sash and the pistol at the bowl of bones, he was the one that simply threw me over the edge before disappearing. Disappearing into thin air from my grip. A trick, an ability, a jump.

The dog howls below my feet.

"Don't let him jump away!" I yell. "He'll take them all and disappear!"

The impact of my voice cracking over the alley sinks in an instant and I can see a hand sink. For the open command to fire.

He's younger than me, I realize, but older than the girl. 

Age doesn't matter though. He threw me off into the abyss. I owe him a bullet. 

My hands adjust around the gun.

Wait for the right moment to use it, my father told me. Oh, didn't I wait? I'll be waiting patiently through another painful shower of suffocating mud and stone breaking my bones if it means I can shoot either him or the girl.

I slip into the hawk again.

Feel the wind. 

I adjust my aim, how I stand. How I breathe.

My fingers press on the trigger.

I let it loose.

With soaring force, the bullet jumps and it craves to find flesh. The recoil hits me, but I stand tall as I can.

The command to open fire is given in the same instance as I fire, and the shot overprints the voice, almost.

In the shower of bullets, I cannot follow the perfect trajectory. I can't say which one is mine. But when one impacts into his arm, I can hope it's mine. 

I want to shoot again. I don't get to. I feel robbed.

When I make a step with my rifle and aim better, take more time, another shout rings through. 

Holding fire, I look over to Ptolemus, but all I see is a gurn before he shouts and we reform to the position in the new line. Loren and the rest of the Vipers scramble beside me.

Black bodies as harsh as the shard and iron.

Being surrounded is usually the ending of a hunt. It ends in a kill. In victory. It ends in a trophy.

My next shot won't be very glorious. He already bleeds. But it'll be merciful end considering what the mind readers and our prisons cells can do to you. It'll be a swift execution. More than he gave me when I landed on the stone and broke my jaw and spine.

As the whole swarm has assembled in the new line of holding the ground, I can hear the sound of something else. I am not very surprised to look over from my position beside Ptolemus shoulder and see a pale face set below a crown of molten fire. 

"Make room for the king!" My cousin shouts.

_Of course, you wouldn't want to miss the moment you get to capture her after that blow of escaping the arena, Maven Calore. We all want our trophy.  
_

Shouting at each other over the battlefield, both the Lightning girl and our precious king. 

I listen to Maven Calore threatening, mocking, now. 

As convincing as he has made the case of his older brother, he doesn't show the same conviction for him in this conversation. Yes, he wants him removed, gone. But not like this. Not like he wants her. My mind tries to rationalize and move through the patterns again, and I think about his hand on her arm again. I huff out a breath, quietly hiding behind Ptolemus, but he notices, his eyebrows move slightly before his dark eyes dart off again.

_Is that what this is about? And here I asked him about obsession.  
_

I turn the bird above my head to the right, and the jets have turned away from flying too dangerously close to rotating around the whole area again. The brimming engines and leaking warbling piping sounds are the only constant stirring inside my ears above the clouds.

It is quite irritating, but at least it makes me stop listening to this useless negotiation. Just another roll and attack, a barrel filling with bullets of mockery instead of metal to kill, and this whole charade of Maven Calore in a cape (a cape. And Samson calls my poetic thought processes too much) trying to convince everyone we have won this time.

We have jets. Missiles. An army. If we lose, this won't bode well at all.

My feet are getting impatient for a kill. Or at least a capture. I want my blood. The muscles in my neck tense. The bird sails low beside one alley. Fluttering wings, it lays low.

My hawk screeches and I steer it away, harshly, quickly, desperate. I can't afford to lose an asset or creature now in this crucial situation.

And I can see that there are more rats hiding nearby.

I see the scorched dirty blonde one, and anger boils in my stomach. The hawk rustles above her head above a wall made of chunks and broken bits of stone. I could sink my claws into her, but she had a gun. And I am part of a group big enough to squash her under their heel. 

Suddenly, heat surrounds wings.

Utterly, violent, excruciating close heat.

Fire eats through feathers and flesh.

I scream. The hawk screams. I can barely make out the shape that burns me. It seems that I found Tiberias Calore.

The prince that made my dogs tails wag talking about treats has little semblance with the one that stares up at the dying wings of my bird. Everyone is ruined and scarred, now, visibly, and he isn't a difference. 

The burning scorching pain flattens me, and I can't move my arms. I bite my lips as hard as possible to stop any more sounds. 

Then the connection is broken, the hawk has died. The contact ripped. The impact shakes me back, rolls over me like another earthquake. My scars and fresh healed broken bones tremble and it makes me sick for a second. 

I have to convince myself this fire isn't real. That my skin is not harmed.

I almost fall, try to grab onto my cousin for support. Instead, I stumble back ungracefully backward because I am unwilling to let go of my gun. Loren catches my back, arms steady, face pale.

He takes the impact of my sharp elbow hitting him in the gut without a word.

I want to yell again, another warning, but the pain of burning alive sinks into my nerves. 

The next thing I know, I can't yell anything, not even speak. 

With a cackling of lightning flung from a girl into the sky, a jet dies and falls like a meteor.

Everyone moves fast. With force, I take a leap. This time, neither Evangeline or Ptolemus try to shield me from the shards raining down the side of the alley. 

My sight goes black a second. I still feel the impact of the fire. A missile crashes inside the turn of the alley across the plastered ground and fallen tower.

Grey-haired frames on the other side of the alley, maybe fifty paces away. I close up again, seizing control of the black dog wandering forward me.

The smell of war so close. 

The corpses piling again.

My Samos cousins are relatively unharmed in the distance. I can't say the same for Hector's son and the other Viper in my entourage.

Hector's son looks ragged and one arm dangles unnaturally from his socket. Loren is bleeding from his gut, blood leaking out. 

Another Viper lost, half a face unrecognizable, and more flames and more missiles. Some impact has killed and ripped him apart.

I glare. Forget how my lungs function.

_This happens all the time._

I don't have time to close his eyes or speak a farewell. This is war. And just the same as his eyes are glassy and dead, mine are still alive.

I have lost the rifle. But I can simply take one out of the hands of a dead silver soldier next to me.

"Get Loren back. I don't risk any more of you dying," I hiss.

No one objects.

When I scramble back on, the line that has held our side has washed away into the second chase of this day.

The dog and I form a rope of smells again and join in.

Or we would. If there wasn't a wall of flames shooting up.


	3. Recede

_recede_

_-to move back or away_ _: withdraw_ **  
**

_\- to slant backward_

_-to grow less or smaller_ _: diminish, decrease_ **  
**

* * *

**_T_** he wall flickers and licks over the ground higher than I stand, a heat that makes me relive the moment the hawk fell from the sky.

A second I stop harshly. Boots scrunching, I dig my heels deep into the ground. It gets softer and more sandy the closer everything runs, flees, chases or follows to the water. The dog barks low.

Behind me, everyone moves fast. The fire is a trick we should have used to cut them off. The heat ignites my scars with a tickle.

But I am not scared of fire.

My anger seeps through my freshly healed wounds, the scars I chose to carry, another badge to show off, to show the world I don't care about their beauty, to show the world you don't kill me, you don't smother me.

It evaporates at the wall of flames like the water some Osanos throws and hurls around behind me, joining the fray. To stop the fire and guarantee the push.

Because they are lucky. But they shouldn't be able to escape. If they do-

The dog's senses are my warning. The black ears drop, and the black, sleek body cowers back, even though we are still roped together and don't fear the fire. A dog's ears can pick up things better than anything else. And just as my pack has picked up uneasy on the lightning in the arena, when the other noise was a mere coincidence before, now the electricity makes us drop.

I don't share the warning with the nymph.

With a dazzling, frizzled smell, the wild found energy comes out of nowhere, again, impossible and angering me, and it finds at least one of them. The smell is horrible. I can pick all the segments up through the dog's rapid moving nose. The burned hair. The cracked skin.

Fire and Lightning.

_What is my gun supposed to do against THAT?_

Again.

My life is built on the maxim that someone will always be stronger than me.

I remember that as a woman always having to crane her neck up even when wearing heels.

I remember that because I am the only daughter from the Viper brother that didn't get the titles.

I remember the day I sat in a grey block of stone and concrete, with two beautiful girls gossiping. I remember the day in the arena like some blurry dissociation, cheering for misfortune, small satisfactions to see Samson getting mauled and throw into a wall.

At that time, I had nothing. Now I am supposed to have won some.

I owe bullets to the rebels for my scars and the dead animal has to be repaid as well.

And I am the only Viper left standing. The others have either retreated or died.

I don't feel anything but the acid that bubbles in my veins now. It throws gashes through my composure, and I shake heavy. Fire gleams on the black rifle.

More water, a second of free sight. I take a weak shot now. Another thundering noise.

The dog snarls when we duck again and wait for the rest of the spear to sail over the flames and pierce right into a heart.

I take a breath fueled by my angry trashing heart, taking half cover, away as good as I can from the flames. It is easy because the flames move. The wall isn't static. They move.

And the formation is standing but shaky with the current state of attacks and the surprise before. We duck and watch as the meager group retreats.

Retreat. What a disappointment.

This is not the complete flushing of helpless prey anymore. Now we chase fighting, retreating bodies.

I look back. Everything is anger around me.

My sight blurs a second. Palms sweaty, I sink my hands on the ground.

I can't control the bodies of humans. I can't tell the soil to sprout lashing vines. But something always lives under the ground, anywhere close, if anything, creatures must be crawling or at least alive. If something has survived the missiles and the trampling feet, it is mine now.

Some sort of tiny organism, smaller than my fingernail. I grab one, two, a group, concentrating.

The vibrations that quiver through me are making me nauseous. There is only the river to retreat to, close by, sweeping behind dead alleyways. Why would they retreat to the water - river or ocean- when we have proven to flood the tunnels and they have a burner?

I wish I still had my hawk. If there were birds in the city of ruins, they have fled when the jets arrived.

I sit motionless on the ground, hands still clawing into the dirt when the others catch up.

First in row is Maven Calore.

For a second, his blue eyes look at me, the howling, huffing dog curled around me, my hands on the earth, as I kneel. At least someone kneels before our new king today. Surely not what he had in mind when we followed the rebels to this place.

He looks surer to get them than this feels.

It was supposed to be a complete victory in the Bowl of Bones.

It was supposed to be easy, complete destruction.

They still run.

The dog and the bugs don't share the tactical sentiments. They just want to drive them farther until they can be caught and broken. For them, a win would be a win.

And perhaps they are right. Perhaps this will make it all sweeter.

I weight the way we arch our backs and sit or stand, the chaos around us. This isn't just a boy putting a spider in my jacket, talking to it at the late-night anymore. But I knew that. It isn't just the crown on the dark hair or that cape. He was an interesting partner for negotiation, and he convinced me with his nice winding words. It is his mother I fear the most. Even with Samson in my pocket for now.

"Towards the river," I say, which is probably needless, but at least a confirmation. I don't yell warnings anymore. The organisms scatter along behind the heat separating us.

He doesn't have a word for me. Just one more look.

His cape bashes through the air with every step. And when he brushes past me, the edge hits me in the face. Some bit of metal fastened to it misses my eye and slaps my cheek. I blink. Luckily, there is no time for a remark.

His mouth curls up low. I only grit my teeth before getting up.

If he wasn't king now and this wasn't against protocol as well as just the fact he has made me an accomplice early on, I would punch him in the throat as I did with Calpurnia the next time I get a private glimpse.

As it is I roll into the shaky formation before me, taking a space right behind Ptolemus black armored back, which seems to be my new favorite hiding spot as of late.

* * *

We lose the Lightning Girl, the traitor prince and all of the surviving Scarlet Guard and conspirators that can escape.

No one will take a trophy home.

As it turns out, the river holds some kind of secret. It made for a safe retreat because they have the means to escape there. At first, it is puzzling, with no trace over water left.

Frames disappearing, flames dying. Only one armored, now capeless boy-king is left at the edge of a dead-end.

We run and search the streets, the pack sniffs. Metal gets rolled around and trashed, buildings even more destroyed into nothingness. But it is too late to find them. At least now. For me. From land. My fingertips in the murky water at the riverbed, below the roads, I attract the smallest school of black-skinned, fast fishes. They drift around the small pace of river I can guide them, but nothing of substance comes out of it. All I know is how deep the water goes down and how it flows. My hair has escaped the tight knots and pinched in needles on my scalp, one black flood of a mess. I lean half before the water, and when I look up, standing up silently , I find Ptolemus looking at me with an expression I can't decipher. He's gone as fast as that thought and everything moves on.

Other resources will have to be funneled.

The Vipers return to me. At least Hector does, for some whispered words about the position, about what has happened on the other side of the flank. While I listen to him giving me the names of the dead, I glare over.

Maven Calore is pale in the grey light, and people shout commands further down the row.

For a second, he only takes one pale, long breath. The way he moves and twitches for only a second reminds me of the unfortunate alliance with the whispers. Then he's reassembled again.

If I hadn't thought we were angry before, we are now. Because silver elite doesn't appreciate to be bested. When you strive for excellence and total victories, you can't afford to lose.

As I have already thought- loosing to a red bunch and the other condemned doesn't bode well.

This has put a damper on plans.

When the whole army retreats from Naercy, we leave nothing behind.

My transport is filled with hurt family. They are half in thought, half venom dripping from fangs after losing a loved one.

Loren has been treated but he is not conscious, weakly moving in the seat. It's both Hector, and Hadrien, his son right and he left from me.

"People will be insufferable the next days," I say.

"It could have been worse," Hadrien Viper says, more pragmatic. He leans forward, taller than me, by a head, but not as soft and smug-faced as Loren. Not as handsome, some idiots might say. A birthmark lingers under his right eye, a dotted point brushed by dirt and eyelashes as he blinks at me in some expectation. "There was some unpleasant surprise, that is all."

"Could it have gone worse?" Hector asks from the other side. "We lost three. For nothing. Not to speak about others. The jet, the dead from the explosions, the lightning-"

I scoff softly.

"You did the right thing when you told us to retreat," Hadrien offers and gives the black dog at his feet a gentle pat on the head as it curls together, black fur glistening with ashes and dust. "I am positive no one can blame Lady Viper or us."

"If anyone wants to blame you," I say out of the experience being on both ends. "They will."

I have no safe words to reassure them. I will have to leave that to my father.

* * *

I don't return to my home. Instead, I meet up with my father in Whitefire.

His hand carefully rubs my arm, ringed fingers with wrinkles on stained black fabric.

Words have left my body in the ruins of the city. Crumbled as the stone, I wade through talks and listen. The light is grey and dim, but Whitefire always blares white light over the night sky.

Archeon suddenly doesn't feel safe anymore for me. I think about the ruins of Naercy and wonder if someday, Archeon will crumble the same. It is a horrifying thought.

I catch a second with Ptolemus in a hallway, walking.

"I saved you, Evie saved me in the bowl," I whisper. My hand tries to adjust my hair desperately. It curls from the knot into my neck. "Are we even now? Does that mean you trust me?"

He shouldn't trust me. We both know that.

It shows in his face. His dark eyes are hard. They try to see through me and my intentions, of the things he knows about me, about the armor that protects him, and the shield I don't possess when I can't hide behind him these last days. We both weigh our past, our knowledge, our pride.

I swallow hard, throat moving visibly.

It's strange to think I was taller than him and his sister once upon a time. It's strange to think I held lectures about family. It's strange to think we have been strangers in the last years.

The strangest thing now, just like that hug, is the way he looks down at me. I must be a miserable sight.

"Go home, I need you tomorrow," he says just as low. We both have lost an edge in this dark grey light and sickly weak rising morning. "Dali."

Something in my ribcage breaks, my lungs swell up and I feel weak.

"I promised not to disappoint again," I answer.


	4. Offense

_offense_

_-something that outrages the moral or physical senses_

_-the act of displeasing or affronting_   
_also: the state of being insulted or morally outraged_

_-obsolete_ _**:** _ _an act of stumbling_

* * *

 ** _I_** feel wrong. Raw inside my skin, my feelings are more imbalanced than ever. My self is torn between dizzy tiredness and being wide awake again.

I enter the foyer with broken fresh scars and smelling like saltwater, sweat, and smoke. It isn't a new mixture and not the worst I have smelled the last days alone.

The lights are weak inside the house. Shapes that blurry resemble the familiar interior delineate along my vision.

I expected the dogs lounging around. But since my father is nowhere to be seen as well, they are either running happily along his legs or someone has put them behind a closed door. One of them is still recovering. The fact that the creature is wounded and limping while I broke all of my bones just to be pieced together by a Skonos in very little time is unfair. Again, I wish an animos could simply cure wounds on their creatures. It would have helped me in the city of ruins.

That hawk was worth something. Wasted asset. And dying painful, nonetheless.

My boots are too loud on the wood. Even the animals all breathe low tonight. Only the slightest sounds from a nocturnal bird penetrating the floorboards from above. It dies as fast as it rings up.

Ears cautious, I take in the silence- At least no music from below or voices from the salon. My mother must be busy sleeping or putting horns on my poor father again where all my family can hear and notice.

The pipes rumble low, water rushes. Bathrooms are occupied, everyone just wants to wash the dirt off.

A small trail of that dirt lies over the hallway leading to the quarters of my fellow brethren. I know it'll be gone fast, swiped off by the almost invisible hands of red servants cowering in the corners like ghosts.

For a second I think about a boy barely fifteen with gentle hands and big eyes. Cleaning a glass cage for a spider, and something in my stomach clenches a little. It feels like the stinger of a wasp pricks my skin tonight, unwelcome, and the feelings that make me weak rise and fall just like the running force of the army before.

I could easily find out how he is doing. But do I want to? It is surprising enough he hasn't been taken as some threat or leverage or simply been killed. Maybe it is simply because someone like my butcher husband or a Queen wouldn't waste time on lowly red blood. No one else knows he cared for me and my creatures when he shouldn't have, except for my father.

To my surprise, I don't find Battle Scar on my bed. A small portion of the silken blanket and bedsheet are crinkled and rumpled. Just like a huge dog would leave it jumping down after lying on it rolled together.

I find my despicable husband again, wide awake, with eyes sharp and bright enough to cut through my skin like the stone in the Bowl. He has been busy with some paper in his thin hands, a small cone of light from the lonesome lamp standing vigil below the half-closed blinds leading out to look over the city.

Nothing in the unkempt memory of this room has changed since I have left it this morning. The shelves and wardrobe filled with some of my clothes and bare belongings. The soft screen, the mirror standing at one side.

I feel a million days have passed. At least my scars tell me that with a tingle.

"Did my mother invite you in again or did you just stay here while the whole legion smoked out a city?"

"I had my own matters to attend to while you played good soldier," he says, and his eyes leave the letters on the paper and rake over the scars in my face.

That makes me uncomfortable. It is that way he always looks at me when I am ruined and battered with dirt and blood. The rubber band snapping back in our connection told me about the unwilling acknowledgment of beauty before.

He always bugs me most when I come from some hunt or trip, and his hands and eyes never leave me alone then. Like he wants to make sure I am still intact enough to be a worthy possession. Or maybe he just savors my pain in bruises like a fine wine sample. Like that moth in the jar.

_I asked myself before how predators mate, didn't I?_

I am not in the mood to think about it too long. The way we dance around each other has become pathologic patterns since we married. I can decipher them well enough to use them. Even without wondering about his attractions again.

"This was a disastrous incident, "I explain and start to peel myself out of the boots. He won't leave. I might as well contest my own space again.

The dirty shoes fly ungraceful past his chair. He blinks once, fingers twitching around the paper.

"Can you imagine how it'll be in the morning when everyone is fresh back on and makes more demands?"

He studies the curve of my throat with some lax interest when I take off the black scaled armor and uniform jacket, two more layers of shirts thinly and flatly crumbled on my skin. "I don't completely disagree. But I also don't agree."

"You know something," I inquire, pulling the remaining needles of my scalp, brushing through my miserable hair with my fingers. I should have given up on fixing it earlier. Now knots have tangled even worse inside. "What have you done again tonight?"

I don't receive an immediate answer, so I only lean forward.

"Some errands, some thoughts to untangle. There is more to ruling a country than simply marching somewhere with the forces. You need well-strung machinery. Some wouldn't work. So they needed a reminder."

He looks at his papers again, sitting lowly beside my bed.

That reminds me of another sighting before we left for Naercy and I can't stop myself from speaking this time.

"Never sit in a chair that's for me and my father again," I warn him. Even if he doesn't deserve the warning. "Or I will cut you to tiny pieces."

He puts the paper down very slow, folding them. I can see the words sprawling along the corner. More numbers. Something about finances again? No. It's dates this time.

What is it with this man and his interest in numbers when he is all but a better executioner for his family?

"I sit wherever I want," he informs me cooly. "Especially if it's part of a deal. This house could as well be mine."

I want to push my fist into his face. My heart sputters in rage again.

"My house will never be yours," I promise, teeth gritted. _I will rather burn it all down._ "You are no Viper. And the deal works both ways. Without me and my father you wouldn't even be staying as a guest."

"Tell that to your mother and her Tyros and Arven's."

_Who did she bring along now again?_

It is about time someone ends this. But my father would never. She has wrapped him tightly around her finger. Perhaps I should slip Hector or Hadrien a command to get rid of her. Now that we are all here together, they seem the most reasonable in the chain of commands. Especially after tonight.

"Perhaps I should ask her what room has the best view to stay in, next time she tells me all about your marriage and secrets and family relations," he continues to poke, and for a second, he lingers inside my skull too, only to know how much any thought wasted on Dayne Tyros and the way she lives irritates me.

The air between us is poisoned miasma, radiation that goes right through our linked heads.

"You are just a second rate cousin without my father or Elara." I lift my head high and channel as much superiority as I can. "We have an agreement. We work together now. But let's face it. While we are at it to insult each other again."

We are both second rate cousins. But I got my promotions now. My enemies are dead or on the run. My cousins are looking at me again. My family has to pay respects to me. His part in it is undeniable. But it is still my name that stands. Not his. I enjoy rubbing salt in the wound of shortcomings. Without a doubt, he thought after the coup he would immediately be raised on some podest.

I only aim to hurt. I unload all my frustration now. All my missed shots. All my anger about losing assets. All my anxiety.

"You are just a better murderer and henchman. You do the dirty work and no one will ever show you gratitude, _butcher._ "

Something glitters inside his sharp face, angry. Like broken glass shards and the hazardous falling buildings, I witnessed today.

This will turn into a fight again. I have shot two different guns today and I have killed and injured people. My taste for blood is still awake.

"You are not the crown of creation, Samson, trust me, I know a deal about evolution and even with all your predatory tendencies, someone like you will never make it alone because-"

I don't get to speak until the end of that sentence. I choke on my breath in horror, and my body locks into paralysis. We've been here before. My heartbeat trashes again. He looks at the window with blue eyes considering and calculating something, while the anger still fluctuates between us. I struggle against the strings. Hopeless as always.

 _I could just make you jump,_ his voice claws inside my head _. Never forget it._

My muscles relax. I slump forward with the sudden release.

He puts the papers inside his pocket. Slowly stands up. His hair looks bright white in the small cone. "Our agreement is not a deal between two equal, Daliah. You are my wife. But don't overestimate yourself. I still would love to choke the life out of you."

_You work for me and I keep myself from breaking you. And you keep your tongue. Or someone might cut it. It has happened before._

Something in me freezes at that notion, locking in place just like my body a moment before.

If my misfortune means anything, if it ever meant something out of the stone skinned dead that plaster my way, I concentrate it again on his back leaving.

* * *

I spend awfully short hours asleep again. I force myself to make my breathing even, lie as still as possible. The paranoia and the pain, the weakness that blooms inside me when I think about my cousin calling me by my old nickname, all that isn't helping to make me relax.

That is my lullaby alone without the dogs as a blanket.

_I can't disappoint. I can never again disappoint- what is the next step-_

The feeling of rawness and my sore muscles continues. It gets even worse when I take a few laps in the courtyard. It slightly betters under the shower. Then I slip into my clothes and it feels all uncomfortable again.

The dining room is filled with green dressed, slow-moving bodies in the early morning hours.

No trace of my husband. No trace of my mother. No invader. This perhaps explains the silence at the long table adorned with porcelain and glass, steaming and overladen with food.

Loren hides in one corner, fork stabbing into something that may have been an egg once but now is only small, massacred particles. His face is as always strangely pretty. It is symmetric in its thin form and long-lashed eyes. But that pretty face doesn't help and it means nothing. It has been smashed before, as the slightly crook in the nose proves. And the eyes are rimmed with grey, bags hanging under them heavy. Otherwise, he at least looks unharmed. He wears some formless grey and black. If he hadn't begged me and spent the last days in close proximity, it would be still hard to believe he is the same person that mocked me all my life. I feel a slight indifference and annoyance looking at him.

Beside some stack of papers and a plate filled with sausages, Hadrien has taken position. He doesn't stab his food. He reads low, some glasses stuck on his nose. From time to time, a wagging tail appears below his chair, and his other hand takes one sausage off silently and throws it down to where one sleek black and two grey flecked big dogs lurk. I see their greedy, slobbering heads peak up. Strange seeing someone else but me spoiling them. Almost a shame we never had the chance to get to knkw more than the others face. I could have used him years ago.

Hector just silently sips on a glass, looking at the big screen flickering in front of the table.

"Good morning," he says low.

"Vipers," I answer. The dogs jump at my voice and leave the treats behind for now. I greet them with my hands rubbing over their backs. "What is the news?"

"Plenty. Your father is already gone to Whitefire. You are expected as well. We were just watching a broadcast."

I look at the familiar sharp cut face and dark hair under a crown, a pair of blue eyes. And the blond frame in the distance, barely holding in the background, reminding me of late night talks with her henchman the butcher, and I freeze again a moment before the usual animosity sulks through me.

"Very well," I sit down at the head of the table. I can't afford to stumble. The dogs curl around my legs like a shield.


	5. Posture

_posture_

_-to cause to assume a given posture_

_-to assume an artificial or pretended attitude_

* * *

**_T_** he bad feeling continues to creep over my back when I finish my meager breakfast. I was never a particularly strong eater.

Add the fact I have had the most unpleasant company the last month.

Add the stomach illness when I get scared and uncertain. Or disgusted.

I force myself now to chew and swallow.

I need to be strong and healthy to lead. I need food to work. I need food to keep being functional. That is the only reason I slowly move fork and knife today. When I cut an egg Loren hasn't yet gotten to evaporate, the metal scrapes over the porcelain with a heavy shriek.

I promised Ptolemus I wouldn't disappoint.

_Dali._

At the memory something heavy accompanies the food sliding down my throat. The dogs at my feet are still hiding and hoping for scraps. Hadrien is already finished and moves somewhere through the house.

One Ear whines low. Runt has coiled together at my feet, but she growls, silvery fur bristling a second. I reach down and pat each of them again reassuring, I hear a tail hitting wood with some wagging force. At least One Ear lets himself be assured. Runt stays a little less friendly at my side, ears pulled back and nose flicking up and down.

It's my own uneasiness transcribing to the animals.

The emotional rawness makes me angry and irritated. I want to lash out at the world as always. But with even more force than usual.

I try to ignore it. Heels clicking, spiders with thin brown legs sitting over my brow, I leave Viper mansion with the dogs, Loren and Hector in tow.

While we walk over the steps to Whitefire, Hector keeps a little in the back after briefing me. I throw down a few looks as we take stairs made of bright stone, but this man has proven at least to be loyal to chains of commands. And besides, Loren is paranoid and twitchy for both of us towards him. If I were Loren, I wouldn't trust anyone too. It is still funny how he hides behind me now, like some child to be protected, after treating me with no respect all my life.

Runt growls again low, chaps drawn back. Her slim body is pressed to my side by now. Her grey sprinkled, sharp cut ears lie flat on her head when she keeps the moving bodies around us in her sight and smell.

Loren chooses a very inappropriate moment to lean over.

"I never got to report," he whispers, and his closeness, especially in my raging state of pain and annoyance, makes my mood even worse. "On the day when you spread in the tunnels, you send me to set someone on-"

"Not here, not now."

"Right," he moves back, lowering his voice and eyes even further.

Runt barks once.

A few figures on the hallway turn around.

When they see the entourage of Vipers and dogs, most decide not to waste anymore looks. And none of mine or their time. I notice two white-dressed shapes that continue to stare. One is a girl, younger than me, clearly Arven, with green eyes that snap at me and the dogs, body slightly leaning into our direction in something like interest. She stares after us without concealing that. The other Arven is the one that usually acts like he can walk in and out of my home. Like he is married to my mother.

I don't have words for them. I only lift my head as high as Loren lowers his and move on.

I can't simply throw the door to the council rooms open, as much as I'd love that. Being proud is one thing. Being reckless or stupid in the pride another.

_Imagine I would act like I own Whitefire. I am no Samson, luckily._

My blood boils a moment, remembering how we clashed last night. With another long breath, I shake it off.

I don't have to throw any door open. The seating around the smooth, sleek table with the outlines of a map etched inside is slowly filling again. I leave the dogs with Loren.

Some members of various families already sit, and as always you can guess by the seating who stands where in the hierarchy.

From the left side of the table, the meager rest that is left of Macanthos under their new prone and less proficient lead watches me and my father with the same snapping interest as the Arven girl with the green eyes did. I pull my lips back as Runt has done, for the shortest moment when our eyes meet. I don't have dagger for teeth, but it works well enough. He looks away first. Osanos, having lost quite the people to the lightning girl, be it in the chasm that swallowed me or the attack on the ruins, has one twitching eye.

Then there's also silent, dark skinned Iral. I recognize the face from watching it shout in the night of the shots and the ball. Samson kept an eye on him through my wasps. Salin Iral looks less offended than Macanthos, at least. If he knew I was involved in getting Ara removed, I am sure that would change.

Gliacon, Eagrie and Laris are keeping in the back, some passing exchange that dies soon enough again. Eagrie probably sees easily what will happen soon, and since the eyes are half relaxed on their seats, I take it as a sign that I can simply step forward.

Provos starts the round to the right side of the oval table, leaning on it, a golden cufflink blinking in the light.

My father has one hand on his brow, besides the golden glimmers he looks plain with his sigils. His only ring, the green one, fingers meticulously sweep over his forehead and the lines etched inside them. The grey in his dark hair is like my spider's strings.

Next to him, Volo Samos seems less tired and worried, leaning back in his seat. At least he doesn't show it behind his well-groomed beard and lips pressed together. But that is just as it always is.

My cousin is there too, arms crossed, face closed.

His black eyes drill past me towards Loren sneaking off with the dogs, in something like dislike, maybe. He isn't worth getting upset about. Ptolemus never really cared for Loren or Atara, I believe. And why would he? They didn't care for him above the needed interactions.

"Pardon my late arrival," I force my face into a smile that should be courteous.

I bow forward and act humbled. The brown, thin spider on my head swipes one long leg over my temple. For Ptolemus, I have another nod. I get a small one back.

"Still on time," My father greets. "Take your seat. Have you had some updates?"

"I had a briefing on the way. Hector made sure." Glad to sit down, I smooth over my jacket as I do.

Last night, the talks went over searching the perimeter. They went over the potential danger that clearly exists. Naercy wasn't a success. Without a price, the masses cannot be soothed, and the wounds the red rebels have clawed inside our ranks are wide open.

We all search for balance. For some that means clinging to their anger, for some, it is confusing, for some it simply means seizing control.

I cross my arms in front of my stomach. Once or twice I can feel Iral's eyes on the spider that lurks over my hair like a jeweled pin, moving down over me.

I don't have many words for all the ears on this table.

A thing that stays the same since the beginning of my observation of royalty. They let others wait.

It takes more than ten minutes of quiet conversation that I barely participate in, and we all brew more or less like a foreboding, silver storm.

Then finally, another caravan of guards and scattered sentinels, and our new king has arrived. First day of his reign, he knows the drill.

The bodies beside me shift. And I can taste something in the air changes along with the arrival of Maven Calore. Another cape. At least it doesn't smash me in the face today.

My eyes only slowly swipe over him, the dark and crimson colors piercing through the bright light, and then I look back over to Elara Merandus.

She still wears black. No veil today. But she doesn't give me one look out of blue glass eyes. I didn't expect any recognition.

We are not affiliated in any open sense, after all.

We never talk in the open. We never interacted. I am very, very fine with this.

The spider creeps slowly over my ear and cheek.

It's a long discussion that turns hazy and angry fast. It continues even after both the Queen and her son have already departed, leaving the same regard of demands and commands as before.

In my current mental state, inviting me to a fight and expecting me not to join in is a bad guess.

Especially not, when accusations get flung around.

"As before in the investigations," my father tries to soothe at some point. "And I can surely speak for my daughter as well as anyone else associated with my house and resources. We give our best. No one has been able to make out where any of the remaining rebels have went to hiding the last ten hours."

"Your best was never worth that much," Osanos mutters.

The air stands stale in the room. Volo simply watches us all bite at each other for now. At least for a moment. Ptolemus eyebrow twitches. Provos hides his mouth behind his hand, ring shining on his thumb.

I hiss. Curl my hands to fists on the table. "What did you just say?"

"No reason to get personal, Osanos," My father grips my shoulder. "I know you preferred to handle my brother. But he is dead."

"What an unfortunate incident that was," Salin Iral notes smoothly.

My father disregards that. Only his hand closes tighter around my shoulder.

"He is not the only head gone," I grit my teeth. I shouldn't. But I am ready for a fight.

Outside the door, the dogs bark and growl loudly. I see my cousin shift forward, and we both get ready to claw and bite, yell or hiss. It is almost anodyne to know.

"That's enough!" Volo finally ends this dispute, voice barely raised but still very clearly heard through the whole room.

I look away, eyes focusing on the dots pointing to all the cities and borders inside the map.

It will never be enough, for anyone. The silver swarm is hungry. The lords and ladies want their food. Their fame. Their retribution. We all have that in common, at least.

A while after my stopped outburst, I finally catch a break without people willing to fling accusations around.

I leave my father to the rest of the talking. If only because my self-control has its limits and the cramps keep unnerving me. The angry lords and ladies have split. I can still feel Iral watching. But Osanos has ushered off after being shut down.

My cousin looks over my head instead of my face now. The muscles in his jaw move. Ptolemus has his own problems and dealings.

Still, when I move two steps away his hand holds me back on my arm. Strangely it feels similar to my father's encapsulated touch. It isn't the malicious taint I receive when my husband touches me. And it isn't the ghost of something I dislike. It is, for the lack of a better word, just there, and I strangely missed it, with an unwelcome tug at my insides again.

"I need to check something," I mutter up to him, despite the breaking hight of my heels. "Just personal. Nothing important."

His grip vanishes with a push. He turns his body away and his face is still hard.

"Don't take too long. No one likes having you around."

An unnecessary expense of words. I still take them gladly. Do I hate being emotional.

"Except for you, of course."

I don't receive an answer.

That concludes to me excusing myself.

There is still Loren and the dogs. Unsurprisingly it is One Ear sniffing after me in the big bright complex.

From my vantage point I can look over the square again. Over the city. And I wonder again. About decay that makes an enormous city a ruin.

The brown, hairless, thin spider crawls over my sleeve.

It sits on my fingers. Tickles me slowly. So small, in contrast to the leaping spiders. Causing harm in small doses, if it decides to bite. I watch it walk and climb over my skin.

My father always wears that ring since the day he married my mother. I don't wear a ring. I still need no jewelry to remind myself I can't escape the clutches of Samson if he really wants to take me in on his promise of control and dread.

You work for me, he said. A typical assumption from someone as deeply proud and twisted.

Maybe I need to stop at the Viper Pit tonight after I return. Maybe the small bites need to get swapped to something truly terrifying.

"Quick. What was it you found?" I ask, eyes watching how the small frames beneath us work relentlessly on rebuilding the city. On removing stains. Rubble. Swipe away the shameful reminders of a night gone in death and flames. And swipe away even more.

He's too close. But right now, as One Ear sniffs and I keep him in check of the corridor, we're alone.

"You said I should put Sentinel Viper on the watch. I did. I also put someone else on the watch for _her son_ that day. I did it afterward too. Since I couldn't tell you."

My hand waves once. With his narrow eyes looking around, his hands form a protective cone and mutter words in my ear. And despite the cramps and the days passed since the chase through the tunnel, this is good. Loren has done something right for once.

It isn't the most new or delicate information. But it helps to fill patterns. To confirm them. To maybe get a hold of what makes people tick.

I smile for the rest of my walk back. My jaw hurts from it.

My path crosses with Evangeline. But a familiar red-haired girl also is around. So I keep it brief.

Avoiding Elane Haven. I haven't spoken to her since the sun shooting. I may need to still thank her.

* * *

Later, at night, I haven't found an opportunity to use my new gained knowledge and confirmed theories about either Elara or Maven. I wouldn't want to catch the whisper queen alone in a night like this. Archeon and Norta still stand. But it doesn't mean that the people inside can't be exchanged and removed as before. The lords and ladies want blood.

They have to know that as well.

The spider is still trapped in the glass. It still has no way to escape the tightly closed lid. But it has air. And the current, lazy state that it rests in makes it clear it doesn't have the need to hunt for a meal. It has been fed.

Disoriented, the spider legs take a few steps back and forth.

Unhurt and trapped, the eyes focus on any movement. Any source of life. And any source of light in the darkness.

It takes a moment. But in the dim cones of light moves a shadow. It becomes the silhouette of more a boy than a man, eaten by molten darkness pouring all around.

The hairs on the spider shine dark as it stretches one leg. It tries to hear for me. To dissect and note the sounds.

But beyond the small space, the confined prison of glass, there is too little sounds. Only dim they reach my mind on the other side. And none has value.

But then, the hair does start to pick up changes. The circulation of fresh, moving air.

The shaking, vibrating lift of a breeze as the lid gets taken off.

The slow breathing of a living being leaning forward.

The spider watches a hand stretch into the glass. It knows this hand. This hand has fed it.

Still, it shuffles back a step.

The hand remains outstretched. Clean nails, pale, holding the palm outstretched.

"I know you watch me right now."

It is the wisp of a voice. The spider hears it now loud and clear though.

"It takes a while to see a difference," Maven continues. "But you move and shift the creatures more than they need to. If they're agitated, you are either close or even watching."

The hand remains outstretched.

"My mother wouldn't be pleased with me right now to see us talking like this. I find it not too bad to hold something physical as proof you are indeed listening."

With an almost disgruntled quiver, the creature moves up his fingers on its eight legs.

Maven holds the spider careful on his palm as he moves back through the darkness. The hairy brown body shakes sideways a bit as he does so, but stays very still now, otherwise.

"We haven't had a chance for a while. But it seems you can't sleep as well."

I don't want to tell him about my dreams. Or the fact I don't get half as much sleep as I would need. Or that my stomach feels like someone sucker punched me. Being inside the spider as distraction helps.

"It is a shame you can't give me elaborate answers."

_As if I would want that for most the things you ask._

If a spider could shrug, it probably would now glare. Instead, it ever so slowly rubs its first pair of legs together.

His eyes are far away for Daliah Viper watching intently. Trying to decipher what he is thinking. "I asked you about love. I still don't know why. Maybe it was curiosity."

The spider taps on his palm to signal that I remember.

"I realize I couldn't have chosen a less unfamiliar topic for you. But as a spider and as a woman, you do know about prey and enemies."

The legs stop touching each other. The spider takes in Maven Calore with lax interest and one set of eyes.

He seems colorless right now. Not a threat. Even though the spider can sense and hear the metal on his wrist that could ignite a spark.

"Let's discuss our further arrangement soon, Lady Viper. Just between us. Unless," his voice trails off. One finger softly touches the spider. "You wish to talk to my mother again about it. Or want me to use Samson to bring you further details."

Now the body in his hand rattles with warning, threatening gestures of the legs and pulls up slow.

"Good," Maven nods before his eyes take in the form cupped in both his hands now. "I didn't think you would want that. Not here. But if you find your way home, I'm very sure there is something waiting for you. Play nice with your cousins. I will need you all pretty soon. The better your relationship, the less you have to worry about anyone questioning your beliefs, I would suppose."

He doesn't have to tell me that. And the fact that he underestimates me and what I think about him. That fact warms my stomach almost as good as a bug devoured by a spider.


	6. Sharpen

_sharpen_

_-to make or become sharp or sharper, Hone  
_

_\- (Music, other) music to raise the pitch of (a note), esp by one chromatic semitone_

* * *

**_A_** t the end of this day, the first day since we all strangely found ourselves back in a daze of demands, I find the mansion bathed in music and sounds of light chattering.

It clashes.

The cracking music and violin soars through the walls and makes some of the animals skitterish. At every high note, some of the birds answer or croak, and some of my bugs surely scatter around their homes as well.

The night, as it seems, has split the mansion invisibly into two halves, both having their own little carousing.

One is clearly occupying the salon.

I don't dare to move past it. The last time I had to sit inside was when my mother spilled secrets to Samson. I don't need that again. But there are at least three voices this time. One is definitely just Arven. The other is my mother. The third is younger. Not quite as featherbrained in laughter as my mother.

Arven and the girl come to my mind, in the hallway. The thought makes my eyebrows involuntary draw together.

A cousin, maybe? A niece? They lost some in the bowl and after too. She wasn't here for Queenstrial, she probably has lower blood and status in their family ranks. It makes sense I don't know any wayward Arven from a province.

What do I care about it, even?

With a long puffed out breath full of disdain, I move up the stairs. At least the second gathering isn't quite as unnerving.

It is just as I know it, the council of pettiness. They have chosen to fill my father's study again. This time, it isn't about any vote though. Smoke fills the air and escapes from the window. Curious. Which one of them smokes? I don't think I have ever seen my father smoke. Maybe just an occasional thing.

A few chairs fill the space between the desk and the shelves. The bird isn't in the cage. But the dogs have rolled together on their cushions. No music, just voices and the sounds of the animals croaking through the house up here. I can ignore the flurry of notes echoing up.

Hector and my father do as well.

They are just sipping on their glasses filled with brown sharp liquor, whiskey maybe.

"We are all early today," I note.

"For once," Hector answers, and my father makes an amused, but tired sound."There have been further instructions delivered to all of us. And everyone is busy. Maven Calore is king for two days and has started to announce construction sites and bargains for capturing the rebels."

"You have to sweeten a deal from time to time to make it look appealing, even if it is just for show," My father says, very quietly, and we all are dragged back involuntarily to the reminder that no one in this room had any sort of position before the month of horrors dragged the mighty and steady down.

And at that, my father and I exchange a long look.

For a moment, the silence is unpleasant as it settles. Then my mother's piercing, high pitched laugh penetrates the wall.

"Do you think anyone will go through with it? Just deliver them, especially the former prince? Just to hope to better their situation?"

"I can't judge anyone's resolve on the matter. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. Either way, we have a troublesome time ahead."

I hum low, unharmonic, but in agreement.

Hector sips slowly from the sideline, keeping himself safe. He doesn't sound malicious or even petty, just bleak, a matter of fact answer. "Which is why we need you both as stable as possible."

"I agree. Everyone is frustrated," My father placates, looking at me. For a moment, he reminds me of nights long past, when "I don't blame them. They fought on the Square we build in front of our palace, they escaped and ruined a public execution. The attack and bombardment on Naercy were...unsatisfying. They slipped through the hands of a whole army now. If the traitors don't get caught and executed in a satisfactory manner, I am not sure what Queen Elara or her son will do."

It's funny how he doesn't say the new king's name, I almost want to smile for that small stab to the side. He doesn't know what I do now, about obsession and about personal interest, but he has dealt with _her_ enough in the past, otherwise, I would not be married to a Merandus, and he would never have warned me in a tale of two queens, sitting together in the night.

Hector's eyes follow our verbal callouts and understanding with the bleak interest of a man sunken half into his glass and the relaxed state of off-hours. But he is far from stupid, and even if he supports and serves, he is still a Viper with his own opinion and venom.

"I don't think mercy is an option for anyone in charge," I explain. It is the only thing I know for sure.

I push a bit of hair behind my ear. My neck aches and cracks when I move it.

"No," He agrees. His sunken eyes and almost hollow cheeks shift with the rest of his face . He blows out a stream of worry. "Mercy is not an option. Not when you have to make sure you survive."

And I agree.

Mercy is never an option. Not with people that want to achieve the total victory and maintain the total control. We have to seek them out and kill them, suffocate them.

We are silver, and we have no mercy in our blood.

And we shouldn't.

"There was something undisclosed brought for you. Your mother went a little overboard seizing up the sentinel and courier, but I made sure no one could break the seal. And then she got distracted anyway." There is a mild crossness scrunching his brow and eyes further, just a second, even though he still sounds almost soft.

I expected a present. Something in me brims with low excitement, even, as my father is slipping the brown envelope into my fingers.

Outmost discretion, I see. I'm not that bad at being discrete, once the price is right.

Runt sleeps on her cushion behind him, dreaming until I rustle with the paper. Her ears tilt, her nose and eyes twitch and she shows her teeth once before relaxing again.

"You have private letters as well," My father chooses as his farewell. His eyes take me in a worrisome long moment.

And sure enough, when I reach the bedroom, just as before, someone has slid paper underneath my door.

Three envelopes. The one on top is an unwelcome invitation in Merandus colors. I don't feel the need to open it first. I put the formal address in navy blue to the side.

The second is another short letter from Larentia. I fly over the elegant writing and decide to read it at least once or twice again, just to make sure I don't miss any hints.

The third one reads my name 'Lady Daliah Viper' in crinkled, forced handwriting, shaky. Like the one of a child. And the envelope is rough and brown in comparison to the other paper. I turn it curiously. It comes from Summerton. I know who wrote this. I feel like the air has been sucked out of the room now.

 ** _'_** _Dear Lady Viper,'_ the smeared and shaking letters read.

Everything about the letter is cheap, not only the way it is formulated.

It feels like an emery paper in my hands, and it smells like dirty water. At the ridges, I can see that the envelope has been opened and closed. In times like this, a message from red to silver is an invitation to open it in hopes to find anything incriminating.

_I named the spider Cleo. She looks like one. I feed her and take care of her, and I think she likes me._

As much as spiders can even like anyone. He has soft hands. She would like that. I can almost imagine her crawl over his shoulder.

_My family is bad. My sister is missing since the day people left their houses to get back to Archeon._

Most words are clunkily spelled wrong, and the pen has dug deeply into the paper _._

My hand swipes over my mouth, feeling the tingling scars over my lips and cheek.

His sister is missing. The sister that told me about the makeup and the list of people that the false Titanos met? A lot of twisted and tangled moves have happened since then. But without her note, I wouldn't have figured it out and made a deal with Maven.

_My mother got sick. We had some money to pay for some of her treatment._

_I don't have a job. And they take me as soon as I turn fifteen.  
_

_I know you won't answer. I know you probably have better things to do._

_But. Thank you._

The letter is so short, it may as well be just a stuttering voice, barely daring to speak upwards into the face of someone above.

 _Replaceable,_ I told him. Fourteen years old with thin arms and wide, miserable eyes.

With an unwelcome, uncomfortable shift I sink into the pillows on my bed. The fabric feels like a cold dance of fingertips on my skin.

I didn't want to get him to the capital, and if I just send another badge of money, will that truly help in the long run?

Strange. I have never looked at red servants with more than the inferior tolerance of a silver noble. And suddenly I wonder how to best save a family.

Everything in my life transpires into anger and hatred. It spirals down and rises like the hawk that the prince burned with a gush of flames. It bathes me in searing fire and warms me at night. It severs the most unnecessary bindings of emotional weight that root people in their places.

Now, I barely feel anger, I feel distressed, and I hate that. I hate myself for it.

The letter disappears under my pillow for tonight, like a talisman that catches thoughts and dreams. If it will bring nightmares or peaceful slumber, who can tell. Tomorrow, I will hide it properly, just in case, even if someone already read it. I have enough hiding places around the mansion. If you grow up in a place and explore it in spiders' eyes, you find a hiding place or two.

I don't want to go to sleep in misery. Misery always makes me dream about something I lost and right now, I can't think about loss. I can't be merciful, I can't be distressed even more. I need to be focused.

The present is calling for my attention.

A small note in sprawled out but clean writing, much cleaner and less imposing of poverty than the red boy writing me.

It states the date and the exact moment of my last fight in the chasm. I know that even before I see the image.

I scratch my scarred cheek and lip softly, irritated.

The day of the Bowl of Bones is still fresh in my mind.

Pixellated black and white, it shows me, in the free-fall beyond a banister. My hair is open, everything about me is bleeding and grimacing, as far as anything is recognizable.

I'm soaring down in a strange embrace with a second figure.

He is blurred, but I remember his gritted teeth, brown eyes, the blink in which he followed and was gone again. Jumping through the air and escaping.

Still alive, I presume. Someone with the ability to escape will continue to use it.

Nothing else is written on the backside of the image. The text behind it, on the next page, is mechanical.

The face stares at me again, a little younger now, titled with a name.

_Shade Barrow._

Ah yes. Well, that does explain the similarities with the lightning girl and his body being hit by bullets in Naercy before she stepped up- family ties. And both with strange red power-infused blood in their veins. Is there a name for them?

The next face, and the next unpleasant recognition, because if I haven't tried to kill the blonde one with the red scarf too many times now.

Having a name to her face is interesting, to say the least. But there is no blood group, no report about desertion as I have received for dear jumping anomaly Shade Barrow.

_Farley._

No blood group.

Nothing about the blonde one or the brother in the news or official channels. I know no one has written anything about them. And I would know what is being said. I sat in the whole meeting, full of fighting and insults.

But there is more, more, about the prince that burned my hawk, and the girl that fried my spider and almost murdered family close to me.

A list of names, with images, and I feel joy, because what better is there than to finally know the names of the people you will rip into pieces?

There is also a date for tomorrow's set, early morning, barely hours away. _It seems I'll go travel sometime soon._

My fingers flex on the paper, clenching, relaxing, burrowing my nails into the words.

I can work with this. This means I am back to be instrumental in my own vengeance and retribution.

It's low to manipulate me, sic me on people as I do with the dogs, but it is efficient, and it works. It's feeding me scraps, making me sharp.

My senses expand just as my nostrils take a deep breath soaked in excitement and anger. Forget the worrisome red boy. I want to hunt. I get to hunt.

I stuff everything back into the broken envelope. I should probably not have this open for everyone to see, but I will be dammed if I don't want to look at it for a while, just to burn the faces into my brain precisely.

Just for the right moment. Just for this.

And with that, with both the plea for help and the contract for a new hunt under my pillow, I relax for just a moment, before I mark myself ready for the chase.


	7. Clandestine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Changed plot/ reordered the last two chapters with important points from the previous now missing 6 chapters. I also due to a translation error didn't have the right timetable for canon so that is why this is not new to me but reordered as well as new content from you. Here we go Harbor Bay chapters.

_clandestine_

_-marked by, held in, or conducted with secrecy: surreptitious_

* * *

**_I_** only take as much spiders as my skin and pockets can carry, have them pressing against the back of the uniform. They crawl over my spine and sit in my hair before resting. A half-see through canister buzzes, taken from the Viper Pit, but I keep the lid up.

I can't take all the dogs with me for different reasons, or so I tell myself. I tell myself that the dogs are good tools, but that I can't waste any time discussing with my father if he needs them here. Then, there is still the damage. As much as I want some familiar company, I almost lost one to the red rat in the tunnels, and he still recovers. I can't take any of my Viper cousins, and I leave Loren and the others behind for this day.

Transportation is another reason. I need to travel now, and I don't have time to choose an elaborate row of creatures or anything even. I decide to travel light and if necessary, knives and bullets will do. Use the resources I get.

The house is quiet, except for the noises the animals always make through the hours that half of them fall asleep and the other half awakens. Their paws are loud on the wood as they follow me around. I say goodbye to my shield of bodies before I leave.

One Ear tries to snuggle up to me, but as soon as he walks forward, Runt snaps at him, and he retreats.

She uses the opportunity to squeeze on top of my body, and her heavy head uncomfortably presses on my arms and stomach, nudging me for attention. She huffs and puffs at my arm, pressing tightly against me.

"You be a good girl," I mutter and my fingers tangle in her shining, grey fur. Dark eyes and yellow ones meet when I deliberately make eye contact with her heavy form. "Keep an eye on your brothers and my father. And if anyone comes to close, you rip them to shreds."

She gives me a soft bark as an answer.

"Good girl," I repeat.

One Ear wags his tail once when I scratch his head as well. 

"Yes, of course, you're a good dog too," I tell him and for whatever a dog's face can declare, it is almost a happy yellow-eyed look with the remaining ear gently pulled back.

I get transported along the heightened, deserted road even further away from Archeon, both with wheels and another means of transport soaring over the sky.

Through the humming and the quiet shaking, I fall asleep in my seat, and I treasure the moment of quiet.

The sun doesn't rise in an inferno of summer red this time. It comes up shyly, peeks up behind thick clouds, and it only gets slightly less perturbed as my transport lowers through the clouds in some blinking light and rotor blades. My ears pop unpleasantly, I swallow hard against it.

The air smells differently here. I can take one whiff, even without any supernatural nose, and I find myself catching the scent of the sea again.

The last few bits down the road toward the shuffling, big city surrounded by smaller plots of green and live, and I don't get turned through the front gate or even towards some bustling construction site or the big control center as I expected.

Instead, I get transported and escorted through Harbor Bay quietly by an officer wearing stoneskin colors. He has the broad shoulders and gait of a man that can reel out a good hit, but something rubs me the wrong way. Not only the fact that I made an enemy of many stoneskins.

This one isn't even Macanthos judging by the slight divergence of colors, he is a Thany, which only proves to me that the cuffed stonefist on the Macanthos banner is sinking, or that it has been approved not to let one of them be getting any closer to me than necessary.

It also isn't about the height. Almost everyone, men or women, is taller than me, especially in low soled but heavy combat boots. There is something in his eyes, something smart, below brute force. And he keeps staring at me.

No one ever knew my face here, even with the scars and the buzzing angry container I still carry. I am just another dark dressed uniform. Because in the slowly rising tide of bodies, a lot of military presence is laced into the crowds, the twists, turns, and every corner.

Not only stoneskins. I see one or two narrow eyes Marinos patrol, and I can imagine a deadly salve of screams coming from those banshees in the middle of a narrow road.

The salt and the brim of sulfur and green algae mix with smoke plumes and other rather standard city scents. 

I didn't catch a good look at the city from above. When I stare into the sky I see a few bright shapes circling greedily. The booming horn of a ship rips through the screams of a seagull, very, very faint. Floodlights of the bridges and the rotund port have stopped circling the water with their all-seeing eyes from the night. It is all steel and cold stone in the distance.

Hector talked about construction sites, and I see it now, stretching somewhere behind me. Just a hint. Not enough to know about it if I didn't read and hear about it.

I shove the observation into the backside of my head and walk beside the officer.

In the early morning, the city is tinted with brooding grey shadows and cool light slowly warming to the day. We stop at the edge of a smaller alley. Not yet in the ratty part of this town, but far from the guarded and fenced parts that only silver blood has access to.

Before I step inside, I open the canister, and the angry sounds bind themselves in the rest of the morning bustling. The insects and bugs scatter in flapping, flickering wings and twitching antennas. The cloud evaporates and disappears in the morning air, and I make them sit on walls in the near vicinity. There is the pulse of the city brimming through the chitin. The small signals and waves that the civilization throws out, the invulnerable accent of technology. The stoneskin officer follows the cloud with slight interest. His eyes are blurry grey marbles.

There is a shadow that is even darker than the ones from the clouds rippling with resistance. He stands in the middle of the small alley, half in a doorway. My cousin's grey hair peaks in some glimmer in the irritating lights. 

Another executioner, and one of my favorites at that.

"You're dismissed," my cousin says, and his gait strutting forward reminds me of Runt earlier, just a creature that knows it's more dominant than others. I follow deeper into the house.

The Thany Officer gives me a look and then ushers back.

I use the opportunity to brush up and close to Ptolemus, hands coiled at my side, back poised as best as I can. I still feel the pulse rushing through me, the small, crawling bodies have scattered over the outside of one wall and below a window. "How long have you been here?"

He feels me creep up, and he slows a moment. Just a pondering second, letting me catch up. "An hour."

"We could have gone together then," I answer. A Viper for a Samos. And don't I like to hide behind his back anyway? "Is your sister here?"

"Not here," he answers, clipped, and I see tension pressed together in his neck and jaw.

"Is she in the city?" I inquire, using every inch of movement to ask questions before it is too late.

He doesn't answer anymore now that he just escorts me forward.

My voice sounds a lot snider and cutting than I intend it to when I grit my teeth uneasy. "Why are we here and not already in the street? Are you going to brief me?"

The low profile made sense to me, if you have enemies to catch you don't want to parade around. But it makes even more sense when I step into the circulating, cool air. The room is harmless, a little dusted and unused, inconspicuous except for the inhabitants. And in the middle of them all, like some glimmer of tiny, crimson ember in the black of coal, there's Maven Calore. 

Surprise after surprise.

No cape and crown today, and it strips him off some polished brand of pride that the images of him and the public appearance has tried to paint right after the unfortunate death of his father. And the whole rest of the fabricated stories.

At the edge of my sight, framing me, my cousin stands still.

It's strange. To know I stand between them because of lies. I made a deal with Maven for Ellyn's death and my silence, and it feels like that was a million years ago. On the very same eve, I pushed my knee on Ptolemus shoulder to stop bleeding.

He would be dead if it had been a better shot if he hadn't had tried to pull the bullet away. 

He would be dead, and he doesn't know that his life was gambled and his purpose was reskinned to the useful executor he can be now.

"Good morning, your Majesty," I greet, thin-lipped. I spit that more out than it sounds courteous. A small rebellion by itself, oh my, and I don't even need red blood sprinkled with power for it. "My scarce information did not suggest you would also be here. But I take it that this means everyone is sure this will be a successful action, then."

If my snide commentary is making him regret sharpening me for an attack, he doesn't say anything.

"Have you ever been to Harbor Bay before?" he asks instead, leaning forward. Behind us, feet shuffle, and another group of voices mixes with a signal sound behind another door. The metallic clinking of guns distracts me. I want a finger on the trigger right now badly. I yearn for that. I want violence. I want blood.

"No, I grew up in the Rift and in Archeon," I answer, honestly, and catch Ptolemus black eyes watching both of us precariously.

I wish I had the dogs shuffling below my knees.

Runt would be ready to tear anyone's limbs off. The thought is heartwarming. She wouldn't care for curtsy, she would snap because she is a protector.

Imagine, our dear newly crowned king losing a hand to a dog. It holds some satisfaction to imagine the metal of his bracelets on the floor, with his blood sputtering everywhere. Until someone gets to him and heal him, even a silver will be weak from the blood loss and break together. But even if I drained all of his royal blood, he can't get much paler than he already is. Like some sleep-deprived ghost in dark colors.

It is the same with me. I feel tired to my bones. The weight pushes on my shoulders. And it never ends, the lying never stops.

I rather not say anything.

"I don't think I like it very much," I continue instead, and earn the shadow of a smile.

"Me neither. But I think we dislike it for a different reason."

"Probably. I am only here to hunt down traitors, rebels, and...deformities. The small talk, I fear, has to wait," A dog guards, and it hunts. What else is the reason for its creation? A creature that licks blood will continue to do so. Because it likes the taste. And I am excited about the taste. It's one of the few things I feel. 

When Maven stands up, he lingers over me by a bit, and I feel the need to stretch myself. I am trying to stand tall enough to conquer the height around me. My teachers and family taught me poise and stance. I try to be poised now, respectful, and demanding the same.

"Deformities," Ptolemus repeats behind my shoulder. 

I tilt my head but don't look back. "What should I call them?"

"New Blood is the most commonly agreed term." Maven Calore's blue eyes are somewhere in the distance like some caught glimmer on a sky, but when he blinks, his face is blank like a sheet again, drained of color or emotion. He weights something in his hand, and I stare at it, a silver device foreign to my limited knowledge, perfectly fit his fingers.

"New Blood," I say, tasting the word on my tongue. "No, I will stick with deformities and anomalies for now."

New Blood. I may need to get accustomed to that term.

That stubborn refusal somehow amuses both of them in their own way, just a small spark in the tense air.

"What are my orders and what is your plan of action to capture them in a timely manner?"

Now this dark-haired boy without his crown and dramatic antics looks at me like I have just asked him if fire is hot and water wet. Incredulous, almost.

"A trap," he mockingly sure explains. "And we wait for it to snap shut."


	8. Indomitable

_indomitable_

_-incapable of being subdued: inconquerable_

* * *

**_W_** hile we wait and while more streams of commands and looks get exchanged, I slowly grasp the situation and fill the details in myself from the scarce sharpening sheet to the radio calls and my insects fluttering around the heads of some men patrolling down the road and up to Ocean Hill, where the command center stands.

Last time the tunnels were flooded by nymphs. This time, no water controller takes time to seal off the tunnels. Because smartly, either by his own idea of by some hint, the construction sites here in the city are cutting the underground escape off.

It is one less hassle and one less thing to worry about. Instead of drowning red rats in tunnels this time, the remaining nymphs are set beside everyone else, just to make sure that the other burner prince doesn't flash too much fire and breaks any kind of trap.

If you fight both the probability of a flame wall and a lightning strike at the same time, water is only so effective.

My hands clench around the weapon I hold. A dark, big instrument of terror with enough recoil to pull me off my feet if I don't stand safe. It is still easily beautiful, as most weaponized things are crafted for silvers.

There certainly is terror in the violence of the swarm. Not that I would know much about stunning beauty out of my own body experience. But I have eyes, and I was once younger.

Our dear new king believes that they will show up here with a bigger probability. He isn't even sure that they will, but it is his better bet, and no one dares to question him. It seems reasonable, with the evidence he presents to me. That evidence is the fact there are two anomalies in Harbor Bay.

When I quietly ask Ptolemus how he can be sure, I get no response. I will have to ask later again.

I catch a bit about red criminals worming through the city. Nothing new there, some organized bunch. I catch something about some of them in cells and something about cut off limbs and trigger fingers as a message and threat.

A cut off body part is a message. To be quiet. To comply. To come begging for mercy.

A cut off body part is a message. To be quiet. To comply. To come begging for mercy.

It depends on what part you cut off the person. I guess someone like Maven with a mother like he has and elaborate history of violent acts in his short reign would know about that. And so I do not comment on a cut off trigger finger.

The next hour is just me, crouching through the streets of Harbor Bay, and I could seemingly admire the old buildings the way I stare them down into the fundament that they were built on.

I don't fully agree with the way they want to carry out the plan. If I were in charge, I would hide even more forces at the control center. If someone is reckless enough to come into the city, with not only someone able to jump through space but also a clearly connected enough red rebel and a former silver prince, I would be sure they jump the gun and get there, because they feel too sure and safe.

And what better place would a control center be to stake out your latest addition to your rag tag group of traitors?

My bugs flutter through the air in search of any clue. The whole unit of fighters, officers, soldiers, is taunt and on alarm. They wait for something to happen. It is almost noon, and nothing has changed.

Harbor Bay misses animosi. No dog unit, like in other forts or cities, and that is a mistake. I imagine that if I had a pack of dogs instead of a pack of banshees and stoneskins swarming around, we would be able to sniff them out so easily. Not even someone that jumps through space can escape the traces of scent he leaves for dogs to pursue. Not forever.

My vendetta is very personal for poor Shade Barrow and the blonde one named Farley. And the proclaimed traitor prince owes me a few feathers he burned from my hawk.

"I am sure you'll care for the jumping one," I note. He gave me the scars, and I intend to not just let it happen again.

"Yes," my cousin informs me.

I look over where the handful of swifts are stationed. Fast enough to catch someone that is immensely fast. Not the worst idea. "Good."

The thought about _New Blood's_ sticks with me.

"They sure don't have any training, do they?" I inquire, silent walking on the road. I wait for the right moment to make sure no one can listen in, supernatural senses or devices. "The - targets in the city. Not the traitors, of course."

"No."

And how would they? They are still red. Beyond surviving possible conscription, what are their possibilities for education and combat training? If they can read, that is already more than enough.

"Not to be crass," I state, trying to be humble and lowering my whole head and stance. No one buys it. They all see my gritted teeth and hard eyes. "But I can't watch the whole city at once, that would be impossible."

People are tired of my questions and words by now. They are glad I am silent most of the time. I stand to attention like I did in Naercy, mostly, that is the only reason I have not been thrown in some arrest cell or beaten. And maybe, just maybe, there is at least the attempt of dialogue between me and my cousin and Maven Calore as we wait. And every breath is too long. 

I hide deeper inside my insects. I crawl inside their strange brains, take in their sensory perception and try to block any emotion except for the twitching, harsh excitement.

The stone shakes and breaks around them, vibrations all over the city. But not one note on the targets.

The sun rises slowly. Here, close to the ocean, the breeze is fresh and cool. The sun is hiding behind thick grey clouds again.

And so I stare forward, out of the cover, hidden behind brittle bricks.

"If you know their whereabouts," I wonder for a moment in hiding with our king, as I switch positions, relentless and waiting with less and less snapping patience for any reports. "Why not capture both the targets to make sure that they can't aid an escape or even just get acquired?"

"One has been found and seized, and I think you will see that there is no way for him to aid anyone anymore soon."

He weighs that device in his hands again, and for a moment I think it is a trigger or some sort of detonator. Because there is clearly something about it that proves it was created to kill or at least hurt.

I can't get more than a glimpse before it disappears again.

It looks almost like a disruptor of sorts, some instrument to shock a target, maybe an interceptor? Or perhaps the small silver thing is a weapon I haven't seen yet. I know some sort of guns and technology, but I am no expert. My first husband was good at this. He held me long speeches about weaponry, from procedures to design and retrofit them. He talked about the closed-up cities and enclosures in which reds produced them. He told me about guns, about how to clean them (as if I didn't know that). He also talked, ironically, about artillery and grenades. He wasn't a very versatile partner for conversation he had to carry, and his family declared me unfit to serve, calling me a danger.

They were right about that. But they can't tell anyone, because they are very dead and gone.

Now, Maven is right about his promise to see that at least one of them doesn't represent any threat.

Whatever the man was or what he could have been, he's just a kicking , helpless creature now that two of the officers string him up right here in a square.

My borrowed eyes watch with antennas twitching, sending a blurred image of a man that is maybe my age. He kicks and struggles, but his will is as broken as his neck will be when the noose is readied on his throat.

Violence in any form is a part of life. It is part of us, the second we enter in this cold, broken world. To rule it, or to serve. Eat or get eaten, I said to a collar of poor jewelry encrusted stink bugs as they scattered away into the sunshine. And if that is not the most profound truth.

The first time I saw a corpse, I was a child. Maybe around seven or eight. I was told before that red in their natural impoverished state were replaceable and weak. Not to dabble with them. Because we weren't the same.

That day, one of the vehicles crushed one of the servants under their wheels. The dogs were livid in the kennels, and the other servants had to clean up the mess. I remember a woman with a hose that usually sprayed the pavement in front of the kennels clean. She was washing his blood and other pieces off the entry to the yard.

To convince me and my sometimes impudent nature as a child, we walked closer. Maybe it was curiosity as well. 

His body was mangled and dressed poorly. He may have been my father's age alive. I imagine a red his age has had a handful of children, dead or alive.

I will never know his name.

I can't remember when I saw a beating for the first time. I also don't remember the first time I truly realized I held power over the people that crawled through the mud at our feet to serve. It is a natural thing to assume power over the weak. It is ingrained into the heart of myself and my noble heritage.

I am, even for silver standards, lucky to be unlucky elite. I watch the heads of our country fall and rise from a good seat.

Even if it was never enough. I could have bragged.

Even if people will always better than me. I could have taken advantage of the fact I will always be a little more privileged than some other silver and that we all stand miles above any red all our lives.

I have watched fires and fights, I have seen death in colors of the rainbow, explosions and broken bones. Dead silver children, dead red ones. Violence is a part of the blood that flows through my veins.

And yet, now that I watch this man, I feel sick. My stomach twists and turns, pressing together.

The image of a red boy with misery in his face comes to my mind, and I feel something deeply burrowed inside my chest. Not pain. Not even empathy. But..something. I push the thought away weakly.

I never learned the name of the first red corpse.

I learn that this one, whatever you may call him else, with red blood still floating through his body, was named Wolliver.

I taste that name with the same poise and dislike as I tasted the word "New Blood", but nonetheless, I remember the name, and it's strange to think that I will carry it with me, even when they cut him off the rope and throw his corpse into a hole.

In the end, it is all we are. Stardust in the void of gods that nortan proclaim themselves to be. A name. On a list. On a gravestone. Shouted in the air. Or forgotten.

The bugs around me scatter and seem to explode in a cloud.

Over my head, one seagull circles lonesome.

I watch Wolliver's feet dangle in the air a second, and they almost look like he kicks again a moment. But then he lies flat and cool on the string that holds him here, and we are just a unit of hunters in waiting, accompanied by a silent square, silent streets, and a corpse.

Ptolemus is so close behind me I feel his breath on my neck as warm as the heat that spreads from the lamps in my glass cages. My muscles recoil as I repulse and refuse any kind of eye contact. My eyes only latch more tightly to every detail of the corpse swaying gently back and forth. Every pore of his skin, with the red subsiding and pale , even blue creeping into limbs, the quelling of a tongue. It isn't too different from all the maimed, dead, swollen, hacked or exploded bodies I have witnessed falling.

_If I look away from this corpse, I am weak._

My stomach turns even more and the cranky, badly spelled letter resurfaces in my mind, another image of a boy and more corpses. Children dead on the floor, shot silver soldiers, a diplomat on a spear in the middle of a ballroom. A man shooting himself in the skull. Nameless red on a square, falling to bullets and shards of metal.

The imagery doesn't leave me alone and I see them all. They storm into my brain and drain me out of all my pulsing excitement, out of all my indifference.

I still stare at the corpse.

_If I look away, I am too weak._

I want to vomit. The feeling rises to my throat in a clump.

_This man was a deformity in the system, and he deserved to die for it. He would have died one way or another. There is no mercy. I know that. I told my father._

As long as I have stared at his body, it is those last words that propel me back into my normal state of mind and harden my intestines like stone mimicry of my enemies.

I blink once, press my eyelids tightly together, stitch the image of one more corpse into the tapestry of death that adorns my life, and move on.

The weapon in my hand shakes slightly. I'm glad my hand is not at the trigger yet.

My cousin is so close I could touch his arm, a tall, lurking frame right now, black and silver. I told him I would not disappoint him. He is in charge of me and in this strange display of youthful hierarchy, he is still above me and just the nudge below of Maven somewhere on the other side of the bricks to my right. 

My cheek burns and rips when I gnaw on my cheek. The blood tastes hot and satisfies something inside me for a moment.

I presume this man had a family. Will they hang too, or will they just be locked away?

If they kill them, they should be more efficient about it. But of course, it is all about the show. We are all for the display.

A big, mean seagull hops over the rooftop next to me, and I press one hand against the bricks before squeezing inside the bird and pulling it up to study the city from the air. 

Just like in Naercy and the Bowl, I forget what my feeble consciousness throws at me, and I wait, knives strapped, gun ready, creatures swirling. 

I am stalwart staunt, and I won't budge. I won't let anyone burn me and scar me again today.


	9. Nerve

_nerve_

_-sinew, tendon_

_-any of the filamentous bands of tissue that connect parts of the nervous system with the other organs, conduct nerve impulses, and are made up of axons and dendrites together with protective and supportive structures_

_-power of endurance or control :fortitude, strength_

_-assurance, boldness: also: presumptuous audacity_

_-a sore or sensitive point_

* * *

  
_**M**_ y heart pulses with the beating wings of the seagull. The rhythm is strong and keeping a balanced, steady pace.

If you get to choose if you want to fight a seagull or a crow, I would advise to choose wisely. Crows may be smart, and they serve an aesthetic that some presumptuous girl in the care of feathers may appreciate. But the fat, grey seagull above serves the purpose as well. It may even serve the purpose better. The hawk was a valuable asset, it was a trained and readied beast. But the seagull is one of many above the rooftops of harbor bay. It strides through the air with the same greed and hunger, and it will never be satisfied.

That and the amount of shit it thereby produces, coupled in those light colors basically makes it just the animal counterfeit of some people I know well. Sadly, a seagull is not venomous, and it induces less fear in me.

But, that is not to dismiss, a seagull has a surprisingly good perception too, and as it shrieks and calls, falling through a ceiling of smoke.

I'm a spectator of sorts, as it flings itself lower, catching commotion on the road and watching violence and commotion unfold.

Above the hill, the building that stood silent and resilient for shackling and acquiring control over the population, a security center, is ruined now. That much has been told. 

I bite my tongue hard to stop the sharp comments from spilling over it, continue to rip into my cheek. What did I say about reinforcing the building? But no, I guess, make a trap convincing, a fortified building would have been no good. And it would have denied to take the glory of the pot, to take the head himself.

When I turn around, nothing has changed.

Everyone is still in their hiding positions, my cousin is still breathing on my neck.

The dead young man on the rope still dangles, and his face slowly has started to lose and warp form, not too much, as he is still fresh, but it has started. The decay.

It seems that no matter if red, silver, or else, we die and rot the same way.

I can't stare at the corpse for too long, only the most decent and needed amount of a few grazing seconds.

"The targets on the road," I susurrate, a comment as if I watch a threatre play unfold in birds eyes. One glimpse of dirtied, dazed bodies running, flying through the air. Silver, red , and whatever you want to call the Barrows. Anomalies, defected, New Blood. "Look mostly unharmed."

That sounds disappointed. Maybe I am. The trap is supposed to snap shut, and it needs to. Without a victory this time, it only gives the enemies more time, and more time means more waste.

It means that giving up any grip on information and losing resources and soldiers in the control center, it seems not worth it to me.

Maybe it is just because I have been trying to grab resources for years only to be left alone in a house to rot, and because my father's cheap dealings and policy have left some fresher imprint again.

My hand ponders over the smooth surface of the metal. It has warmed up under my touch. I need one push at the trigger to rip a hole into a stomach.

Sadly enough, there are limitations to killing the targets. Acquiring some alive is more pressing, and orders are orders. Even if they leave a sour taste and a ring in my ears.

But I swear to the blood in my mouth and veins, no one will burn me alive this time, no one will shatter my bones. 

And so we wait for the signal while above and below me, the ground shakes, and the small group creeps closer through Harbor Bay and surroundings, towards us.

The lingering of predators in waiting for prey, watching in complete silence over the dangling corpse and the empty space below. The sky is dressed in drifting clouds.

The closer they get, the more I feel my pulse quicken and my breath rising. The scars tingle and my fingers wait in anticipation. To my left, Maven Calore has crept up the perimeter, concealed and hidden, surrounded by more guards and soldiers.

To my right, I can see a vein on Ptolemus throat pulse, and it looks the same way that I feel, rushing under the pale skin.

I think about the promise not to disappoint, about orders, and about following, but I don't have time to make any reassurance. I don't have time for anything but hold tightly to my weapon.

Then it starts. Finally.

My fingers cramp again around the gun in anticipation. In the far corner of the statue, some of my bugs and wasps scatter and fly away in a small, dark cloud.

The first one is the blonde one, and my ears tingle and screech, because she doesn't have a weapon now and will get no chance to get one. The Barrows and the prince are right beside, and they all have found the most obvious bait. The jumping one is still injured from the shots in Naercy. I think about my poor limping dog for a moment, and the red rat that has killed herself after getting captured. Maybe a limp for a limp is a good start. 

But how about a scar for a scar? _  
_

_A broken spine for a broken spine._

They are distracted by the corpse. I can see them stare, and I can hear them debate. 

Half of them can't just blink whatever impact it has on them away.

My body is surging and shaking. Begging to let loose and move. But I can be patient. I have been patient and waiting so, so long. What is one more moment now? Sweet retribution and blood price, for my face, my pride, and for myself.

And then, the silent signal gets pushed with the fall of a hand and a nod, and the trap snaps shut with force.

It is a well-coordinated attack, and the fact we have waited has given us at least that advantage.

The fast ones are first. Just as they were promising me, the swifts swarm right up the jumping one to stop an escape. They separate him flushing and fast from the group.

Then the bodies next to me move, and I release all tension and move behind my cousin.

Cornered animals tend to snap. These ones are no different.

My swarm in the sky screams in alarm about the sudden change in temperature and I duck. Right beside me, electricity flies into nothingness. The lightning girl at least tries to fight. 

She hasn't made that plan with my dear Samos cousin though, and seeing him kick her around almost would give me satisfaction. Almost.

I expect another barrage of lightning, but that never comes. I assume then that the silver device has done its purpose.

When I look over, I see Maven Calore's back, and the girl on the ground. I remember how he asked me of all people about love, and I asked him about obsessions.

He must be overflowing with satisfaction. 

It will make him insufferable to work with. 

Next to me, a stoneskin and a greeny waver back. Heat flickers over us, and the flames coming from Tiberias Calore are hot and angry and deadly. I can feel them singe my arm and the closeness curls some of my hair. The reeking stink of burned hair is disgusting in my stomach. 

Every single one of them is surrounded, hopelessly outnumbered. The last time we lost. With an army. 

Shot flings by my ear and I duck again, just in time to see a bullet brush past me. It flies straight at Ptolemus face, before the metal slows, excruciatingly stays still in the air, and finally, and very harmlessly, drops to the ground. Another follows, a third.

I turn my head and look at the flushed, dirty face of the blonde one and a corpse. 

"Not this time, red rat," I tell her and pull the trigger for effect.  
  
The heavy recoil of the shotgun flings me back for a second.

It breaks cobblestone right under her right boot, a threat, a warning. Splinters snap upwards, and the sound gets lost in the cacophony of fighting that drowns the whole world and paints it in the color of blood.  
  
I didn't hit her. But it makes her move, distracts her from the next shot herself.

And even if I can't shoot the girl or the prince, I can perfectly well aim to hurt this one.

The handle of the gun, the same warm, sweet metal that lends my finger to the trigger, now hits her. The impact of the massive weapon clocks her right in the side of the head and the temple and knocks her down. Flying in dirty clothes and blood on her face, she rolls over the ground in the impact of the hit.

Her own weapon slides down and out of reach.

I give it another kick, and in the corner of my eyes, I can see my cousin's silhouette turning forward, now that the bullet rain has stopped for a moment, stepping through the cluttering metal on the ground.

Before she can stand up, I kick her, as hard as I can, unloading my whole anger and fear, the strange cutting wonder about the dead body. I want them to feel the same pain as a broken jaw and spine.

To my right, the scuffle and fight have still not been broken off. Tough ones. To my left, no fire, and lightning. Just a writhing, a miserable small form of a girl, and the fact she is still moving is a small token of strength.

I don't have any appreciation, though, and no time. This one here, Farley, is on my list. 

It takes my feet in the combat boots one more step and I stand right above her. Red rebel, scarlet guard, murderer, rat. This time, nothing distracts me. She can't run and she will not be saved.

Her eyes are hard as the stone that has splintered and smoldered around us.

My heavy sole finds her face. Before she can stand up, I put my foot down and push. I see her fighting it, fighting the pain, the force that I enact, but she is at my mercy.

And I have no mercy. I could crush her skull right here, right now. Instead, I just put the muzzle of my gun to her head, not yet pulling the trigger.

"Move," I dare, and she grits her teeth when I shift my boot on her head. My fingers are warning on the hilt. "Move and I shoot."

The loaded barrel will just explode her brain. At least she won't be as horribly harpooned as Lerolan or burned and ripped to pieces as his children, and she wouldn't be breaking to pieces or drowning as me and my fellow silver soldiers in the chasm and the bullet and lightning rain in the bowl or Naercy. 

On my other side, it seems, they've finally managed to subdue the burner prince.

This is it. This is the end. We have won.

With another surge of wild adrenaline, it seems impossible to take in, that it was this...easy. Almost. 

And as fast as I have garnered that thought, it is lost. Because my arm and my body gets smashed, and something rams into me with force. It's blurry, alive, and heavy breathing. 

It reminds me of the struggle at the bannister and the fall, and I have no doubt the jumping one somehow has managed to escape the hold.

The gun slips off Farley's head. 

I scream, and the cloud above my head sizzles angrily when another flame shot rips into it. I look back. 

And she is gone. 

This can't be happening. 

To my other side, my cousin and our king now move. But they are too slow, and no one can shoot something they don't see. 

Leap after leap. And they are gone. All are gone in three blinks.

The silence on the square isn't anticipating or in triumph anymore. Between charred and dangling bodies, injured and dead, we stand in stunned stupor fo a moment. 

I don't wait for a command. I spring into action and run. I run down the nearest alley. 

Every bug, spider, and fly, everything that inhabits this city, rises. Like a black flood, we scatter to find the prey.


	10. Shiver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (ok pls be gentle this was..very hard to write, still trying my best to come back into the business, I will probably review all of this anyway as I did the first book)

_(ok pls be gentle this was..very hard to write, still trying my best to come back into the business, I will probably review all of this anyway as I did the first book)  
_

_shiver_

_\- one of the small pieces into which a brittle thing is broken by sudden violence_

_-to undergo trembling: quiver  
_

_-to tremble in the wind as it strikes first one and then the other side_

_-a group of shark: herd, frenzy  
_

_Fandomspecific: silver ability to control ice and freeze things (completely unrelated to this chapter though except one remark)  
_

* * *

**_L_** ife was normal in the everflowing ways of red and silver. Now people have long noticed the presence of soldiers that run through the streets in a frenzy. Now that the trap has snapped shut and failed to execute in the demand, the silence is worthless. And so the forces move as loud as they want in their own city again.

With every footstep, I sweep through the alleys and I bury the stone under a flood of small bodies. The clouds above my head get darker, buzzing dark aftermath of anger, and I pull and push them with me. 

I am the plague.

The anger boils in my blood. It presses my bones together and makes my heart pound harshly.

As always, the needles that prick my scalp have failed me, and partially singed strands have escaped.

Every bouncing of a strand is the bouncing of thoughts, every needle prick is the repetition of the same cycle of conclusions.

I warned them. I warned all of them. People never listen to me. I thought that had changed now, but it doesn't mean a thing.

They escaped before, twice now, thrice, too many times, and somehow it never gets less irritating to know the rats have swum away and hidden again in some secret hole in the ground.

Not today. Not after the almost guaranteed victory.

My hands are shaking, chipped short nails, and one sleeve stained with dust.

I put them into the air, and the cascade of bodies hurls down, moves after my fingers. It spreads and feels the ground, it sees through the static waves that surround our world, and it trembles in waves along with the electricity.

I can be a hundred eyes and wings at once. I _am_ a prodigy. I was never exaggerating. 

Soaring through the sky, wind blowing on chitin, I struggle and fight, but everything I feel fills more holes. The facette eyes bring me information until I feel like I will implode.

I catch the glimpse of a body on a string. It sways back and forth,a s dead as it was. Black dressed, harsh figures move around it. One is young, pale and fighting some sort of combusting tension. One close by is grey-haired. He catches the bug closest to it, narrow eyes. Mouth voice syllables easy to read in a command.

_Come back._

I bite my lip and cheek hard, curl the hands into fists, eyes fluttering with every blink of my lashes clicking on my watering eyes.

The constant movement makes them hard to grasp. They jump too fast. But even with someone in their group that can appear and reappear in thin air. They can't constantly be on the run. He'll get tired. If he isn't already. I can't imagine the swift soldiers were too nice to him, and he was limping already. 

I catch a glimpse on the outskirts of Harbor Bay, off the tracks, and regular roads. The clouds of bodies aggregate together. 

I should turn back and take new orders. I need to follow. I should share this fizzle of information.

Instead, I start to run. I run like I haven't run for a long time. Faster than in the woods, more obstinate than in the tunnels. But less desperate than other times as well. 

I run so fast, my veins seem to explode.

My feet carry me fast across and beside rooftops.

No tunnels and no water to flee to this time.

Rounding the group up in a cloud of black insects, I feel like I glide more than I run now. 

The first thing that I feel is the burning hot flame that scorches me and the bugs around me. immediate, brutal heat incinerating feelings.

I roll around in a practiced motion, evading the direct contact, but more of my hair catches the flame. It creates a vomit-inducing smell. 

Diana Farley's face still carries the print of my sole, and as unconscious as one of the Barrows is, the jumping brother is very much alive and doing well. But not too long anymore.

The burner prince looks exhausted but unscarred. He doesn't pull the flames higher, we are both gambling for time to be found now.

We stand under a wavering cloud, shadows flying past, and the sky is dark under my plague.

"Lady Viper," his voice echoes over the empty space between us. A distraction, _it is a distraction ,_ I know it. "I know you. I knew Roman well. This is not what it looks like, you're alone, don't make me-"

"Make you what?! Kill me? GO ON!" The wings around me buzz angrily. "I don't care what the world thinks or your brother spits out of that pit of lies he has for a mouth, I'm going to hunt you to the end of the world," I promise him. "It's all I have!"

I draw the knives strapped to my legs, and even though I am no metal bender, the sharp edges seem to sing to me. With two steps, I cross the space, dust, and incinerated insects flying around me.

The next thing I know, I blink, and while the unconscious, sprawled out form of Mare Barrow still lies flat, her brother is gone, and so is Diana Farley. And then flames spring up on top of me, while something hits the back of my head so hard I feel something in my neck and jaw crack. 

I lose consciousness again, black and blurry, everything dies around me in the fire, a million screams of pain.

* * *

The dreams send me through needles of pain, hearing voices from my past. Flashes of things I have seen.

_A dead child, my hands smeared with blood. The image mixes with myself standing at a window, nails digging in my palm, a small ring at my pinky, with hair weighting my back in a braid. I watch a bird fly past, wings spread high as it flutters up in shock._

_Next to me stands a beautiful woman adorned with green and black jewelry and the eyes of a murderous mountain lion. She doesn't flinch when the bird gets hit with a piece of silver metal and falls, a target taken down by silver-haired children._

_She doesn't move her eyes away from the bleeding, dying creature. "Never forget," she says. "Creatures are expendable. Everyone is. They're not your family."_

_"Creatures are expendable," I agree and try to stand straight, in case she chooses to look at me. "You are my family."_

_She doesn't smile. But I know that she hears me. That is enough. And I run back to my training, as fast as I can._

_As fast as I can, too fast, so fast. Everything around me flurries, and I feel like I am back in my nightmares, held by whispers, as the flames, the bullets, the explosions and splinters take my world. And I fall down the chasm, into the morass, jaw-breaking, pain and fear blinding lights_.

My blood feels frozen in my veins. Icicles of cold sweat run over my back. I feel it, even in this nightmare. A hand touches me.

The hand touches my throat. It feels cold. The images in my mind wander down to my heaving chest when I swallow. The hand tingles, the fingers linger over my skin. It could choke me.

Something from my dreams has followed me into real life, and it burrows through my paranoia riddled mind.

The hand belongs to my whisper husband, and it will choke me. I ruined everything, I failed, and now they will remove me- and he'll love to do it.

With a high pitched shriek that seems to break my skin, I leap up, hand swinging upward to hit.

My fist connects with a chin, soft, pale skin, blond hair. I can hear a gruff sound of pain and feel the bludgeoning hit pounding through my knuckles.

The world is twisting and turning in darkness and small, white cones of light.

Another twisted breath of panic and I jump up, bare feet sliding over the ground. It feels cold, sleek. I'm in a bedroom. I need to flee. I need to get out and away.

With two steps I leap up the door and push the handle. It opens without any problem.

My feet pound over the ground, and I swing through the hallway, trying to figure out where I am, what is happening, but I can't think. It's like the time in the Hall of the Sun. I break and fold together on the inside. The panic consumes me like the fire consumed my insects.

I can't breathe and I can't speak.

When I round the corner, I hear someone shouting behind me, and a uniformed frame appears before the door.  
And then I can see the alarming figure I just hit, dressed in bright white, and I look forward and want to run even faster.

I make it exactly three more stumbling steps before I crash into hard metal scales and black, smooth fabric. Ptolemus looks down half in some sort of surprise and half frazzled, pale, and stained with dirt.

"What are you doing?!"

My voice is an incoherent babble that proves that I have lost my mind when I edge closer to him, just so I can hide behind him as I did so often the last weeks. "Don't let him kill me, I swear by my colors I am sorry I disappointed you, I swear I meant what I promised. I can do better, I can do better, don't get rid of me, I was so close."

His mouth opens slow as if to breathe, or to answer, I don't know. His dark eyes narrow slightly when they wander beyond me past the hallway.

The voices behind us get loud. Fight or flight. And I can't decide. I can't decide what to do. I am weak and I can't even breathe.

For a second I think Ptolemus wants to shield me with his body, but he doesn't. Instead, he gives me one long, almost quizzically look that seems to be filled with something grave.

Then he simply grabs me, hands hard like the cutting steel he wears and uses in fights. He hoists me up and carries me back the way I have run like I am just some bag to carry over one shoulder.

My hand tries to grip at the scales while I scream, and I cut myself on some sharp edge. Silver blood quivers and flows down the side of my finger. His hands clench so hard around my body they hurt. But everything is numb and meaningless beside the pale terror in my soul.

"She's going to let them kill me, the mind readers are going to kill me, I know how easy it is for the butcher. I watched him kill men with the twitch of his finger. He won't flinch, he likes to see me hurt."

"No one will kill you," Ptolemus answers, voice snide and carries me onward, feet kicking weakly as a stranded fish suffocating on land. His hard hands and the fresh blood ground me in some sort of twilight, a half clear reality tainted in madness.

Maybe everyone was right. I must be mad. This happens again and again. I must be mad.

"I wasted the opportunities, he told me they would after the sun shooting," I mutter at his ear but stop resisting. "Please don't leave me to them, please don't leave me alone."

"Your husband is not here," he answers and ungracefully drops my weakly shaking form on the bed that I have run from again. "You are still in Harbor Bay."

"I am still..." I can't finish the thought. The white-dressed figure appears in my field of sight. Not Merandus white. Skonos. A healer. I punched a healer. "Oh. Oh."

And that is the last thing I say, still blinking against the haze of panic.   
We are silent, but he grips my hand and unclenches my bloody fingers.

Just like the night at the sun shooting, silver blood on scales, and a trembling grip on a hand. His silver-grey hair is like some halation in the cones of light.

I don't let go of him. He squeezes me painfully hard, and I want to thank him, but I can't speak.

The sun has reached a high point at the sky when I wake up. Big windows, now visible and open to let in fresh air. Two doors in the room. A single, empty cage that stands between them, the fabric of a sheet half ripped away. No doubt a remnant of my fight with the healer and Ptolemus.

The view is blue. That is all to see. If it is sky or ocean, I don't know, I can barely focus.

I press my eyelids together. Frames blur in my sight, they move. The guards are posted at the end of the window, by the doors that lead outside to the water that swims in my sight and inside the house.

"Awake," one guard realizes. The voice is nasal and stinging in my ear. A banshee, Marinos, brown muddled color on the uniform badge, skewed eyes, dark buzzcut of short hair, sneering mouth.

"Go report that," the other one says. To whom? The king? My cousin? More guards? 

My eyes blink hard and push him into my periphery. Stoneskin, Thany and looks familiar, if only angrier. I suspect every single soldier alive looks angry and battered. He rolls his broad shoulders, but has no hand at any weapon. "I'll wait here." 

And with that, the lithe figure dressed in grey and brown disappears.

"You're the one that escorted me through the city when I arrived," I try to start the conversation. Just to get at least enough familiarity to question him. I don't think I have the power to order him. If I had it, I have lost it. Just like I lost the rebels.

The guards didn't get posted for my safety. They got posted for my insubordination. The pain is gone, but my head stings with the terrible clarity this may lead me to another demotion or even cell. Because I was warned I would disappear if I couldn't do my tasks and keep my mouth shut. And I failed today. I promised not to. And I failed them all, every oath and promise to people with the same blood. Or people that bind me by my blood.

I swallow harshly and sit up. The sheet falls. I still wear my shirt and pants, at least. Even if they are drenched in sweat, ash, and blood.

"How long was I out?"

"Two days," he answers clipped. Now his hand is at his weapon. The more I move, the closer it creeps to something that almost looks like the interceptor Maven used against the lightning girl, but less rare. This will just shock me when I dare to move, a small portion of electrocution to bathe me in more pain. "You were awake once and punched a healer."

The nightmare comes to my mind, hands touching me. I feel the sweat again, and I must stink, hair a mess on my head in knots and singed bits.

"If you're here and everything is quiet, it probably means no one has been caught, else I would not be able to hear myself over the parade of triumph and the broadcasts blaring it into the world."

"Some were close. But no."

Indeed, very close. But I don't think he means me.

"What a shame," I mutter and sit up slow, sliding out of the sheet. I am still barefoot."Where were you stationed, during the assault? I didn't see you on the square when they strung up...that red-blooded one."

He avoids my gaze. "I was at the control center."

"Ah. Tell me you fought well before you lost. I need to hear something nice about this attack."

"I smashed the head of the jumper into a wall." He shrugs. 

That catches my attention good enough. I flicker forward with interest. "Your name, soldier?"

_War makes widows and soldiers fall into trenches to die._

_All part of the endless war machinery._

I don't ask for his name so it won't be forgotten. I only do it for personal reasons. For later.

"Asher Thany." 

I nod. Then I step toward the glass door leading to the blue. He steps straight in my way.

"Asher," I say, voice hoarse, throat dry. "Move to the side."

"You won't run."

I shake my head, belittling a man for a stupid question. He looms over me like most anyone else does, bulging and heavy like a boulder. "Where to? I already tried."

* * *

The pier is small, narrow, made of wood. It leads between two rocks and across the breaking sounds of surge and tide. I roll up my pants, away from my ankles, and push the feet into the water. It smells heavy of green and salt, algae giving the blue a touch of green.

Just as my hands attracted schools of fish, my body acts in the way an antenna does now again. I see the small bodies whirl under the heavy clouts of seafoam. They flinch in shuddering motions around my toes and back to the stones. I watch them a moment until they disappear. Instead of fish scales, the grating, yet strangely smooth skin of another animal touches me. It feels like sandpaper, a strange closeness to how it felt the last month when I wasn't alone in my head.

When I look into the depths of the water below the lonely pier, my face accuses me of tired anger and surprise. Below it, a fin moves, and a lithe, sharp body starts circling my feet again.

The shark is as long as most of my body, and mostly grey. It circles me again until I put my hand in the water and touch it. It glides under my hand like a smooth cat, back of its head first, until my hand touches its back and runs over its fin. It chafes on my fingertips. But I had it worse.

A silver and black eye stares at me, unblinking, and my hand rubs over the sharkskin again. I'm not afraid. I feel them, and they know that I do.

Another big, grey body appears below the pier, and they swirl around me. They rub on my legs and let me touch them, softly first, demanding later. They get closer and closer, until I need both my hands to pet them.

Some people stay as far away on the water. Asher Thany and the returned Marinos squeeze at the corner of the pier. 

My feet freeze in the cold water, the breeze ruffles me. But I keep sitting on my spot, watching the sun wander.

At least my cousin doesn't fear the creatures. He strides over the pier, boots heavy, back arched, eyes taking in the fins that break the surface.

The shark sinks deeper again, snout rubbing on my leg again. 

"You're still here."

"I just came back."

"Welcome back, then, cousin." 


	11. Sidestep

_sidestep_

_\- to bypass, evade_

_-to move out of the way: avoid_

* * *

**_I_** stay at the pier with Ptolemus for a while until the shark fins disappear completely under the water. Naturally, he doesn't just put off his boots and hangs his feet inside, but he sits down next to me. Our shoulders brush, and it feels as chafing as the sharkskin to my strained muscles.

The wind ruffles in a soft cool blow over our faces and hair. The constant closeness to heat and fire in the last days has made my hair brittle and broken. It is an uneasy, tangled mess. His is the same as always. It reminds me of runt's fur, the same, sleek, silver coloration in the brisk sunshine that falls in stray rays down.

_I miss the dogs. I shouldn't, but I really do._

"Don't tell anyone I lost my cool last night," I ask, closing my eyes and taking another deep breath. "I just don't like being touched at my throat, it rubbed me off the wrong way. There is nothing more to it."

His face twists a little, grimacing, and a silent, foul question forms in a cloud around us as dark as my swarms. It's unspoken since the day he chased off Samson in the hallway after the coup, him and his sister making me sit in some safe, small niche of space, eyes half-closed until my father picked me up.

"Just promise me you won't tell anyone you had to carry me," I insist. "People already think the worst. They don't need to know I am weak."

"I won't tell anyone," he promises, easy enough to believe. "That wouldn't help you or me."

"True." To deflect any following questions, I give his arm a stiff pat with my flat hand. He let's it be. "How are you doing? We usually don't get to talk about anything. I am not the only person that almost died last month."

"I'm fine," he lies with the same deflection. "Yesterday. When you screamed about-"

My face grimaces before I stay flat and without any visible damage. "It was nothing. I was having a nightmare. I was panicking. I told you. I'm scared of failing again. Your mother would not look at me again if she knew I was not able to handle myself."

If the pier would just start to shake and waver, it would be a proper metaphor for this conversation. But she is his mother, and he knows I don't lie now, at least. It's the only reason he doesn't just walk away. He asks rhetoric questions. He isn't stupid. It worked with Evangeline before. It works now. I dodge any question for my babbling about _missed opportunities_.

"Oh, I almost forgot. You're going to get married."

A ship horn flings through the air somewhere in the distance, and it sounds like another set of funeral bells coupled with my too innocent words. Not a rigged alarm, but a bitter reminder and dry ironic, bellowing echo.

He doesn't fall for my distraction this time while he shifts his body, arms on his legs.

"As someone with experience on that matter," I tell him and move my feet forth and back to conceal my body getting stiff at the sheer mention, maybe just as reaction or reflex. "You could have ended up with someone less pleasant than Elane at least. That's worth explicitly more than it seems like."

Not that I am _too_ fond of Elane. But she means something, in this strange way people mean something to me because other people care. And at least she listened to me, keeping an eye out. Though I suppose that was for selfish reasons as much as public appearances.

I don't like the grave narrowed eyes I receive, the same expression, the same sniffing as before, at the mention of my throat. So I swing the topic around before he can ask me anything.

"I wasn't _just_ talking about my arrangements. Stop. I know what you are thinking. I can see it on your face. I shouldn't have told you." I shake my head in weak protest this time, but I only earn a set of trenchant eyebrows.

"The whisper has a death wish, he never knows when to stop."

"Oh, I don't disagree. He knows no subtlety. But let's be honest. I was never going to marry anyone of substance. My status only got elevated very recently." And if that isn't the terrifying truth. Never married anyone that was not second graded. And with megalomanic ambition or a complete lack of it. "But as I said. It is not about me. Evangeline can't choose as well. It's official again, I guess. I was busy the last days."

Marrying Maven Calore isn't something I would wish for. Gratuitously being thrown into the continuation of a betrothal to a throne, because that is her place, she was born and raised to be Queen. Atara was rightfully yelling that into the world, it is a matter of fact. 

His jaw clenches and untightens in a harsh motion before he speaks. "It was to be expected after the last week."

Of course, he is right. We don't talk about the bowl. We don't talk about Naercy. We press the days in shuddering alarm of gunshots and hunts together. And I only admire the stability that stands behind his eyes, he doesn't scream or panic. And I can't either. I have to stop being weak. I am a scorpion. I don't have the _capacity_ for this emotional mess. I can't afford it.

The water turns unsteady and whirls in excitement and hidden pressure around me, the sharks are still turning.

"Still. Keep your eyes sharp. The usual. I'll do the same when I get home." The last words are razors digging into the inside of my mouth. "I'd love to say we wouldn't need to protect her from anything less than an army, but every corner in Whitefire is as dangerous as a trench, so better stick together."

And that is the last of it. I give his arm another pat. This time, he holds the outside of my fingers when they linger over the fabric. Not long enough to make me hate it.

We tune our mouths into thin, uplifting lines. Take a breath. Then, when the sharks are gone, so are we.

No one comes to get me, not as they did after the assault on the Macanthos. No manacles. No more guards than the two I already encountered. They stand in silent, frustrated unison, and it is clear that they don't want to wait in a hallway and watch a woman sleep.

Three days after the attempt to trap and catch any personae non gratae, the lines not on the hunt are thinned out, with the little surviving groups from the streets and the control center on top of ocean hill keeping Harbor Bay in check. Even if I was to be arrested, it would probably go by quietly.

_You'll disappear and no one will ever know what happened to Daliah Viper, the merry widow. And no one will care._

The threat holds merit. It makes me shiver.

And there is always a chance I step into the Viper mansion in West Archeon and throw myself out of a window. Or shoot myself in the head.

I pull the broken hair on my head into the resemblance of a braid.

Combined with my pale face hulled in scars and my plain, dark clothes, I don't look like a hunter, an heir, or a scorpion ready to sting.

For a fleeting reflection, I resemble the nightmare mirror of another woman. Someone that loved me, hated me and died. Then I just look like I came out of the cell last year, and that is even worse.

My flat fingers and palms rub the scars. The skin of my neck clamps, the scar tissue tingles. Asher said my head was pooling in silver blood, and I was lucky the cloud of insects made it easy to locate me.   
Heavy hits, but I had it worse. No broken jaw and spine at least this time.

As weird as it is, I can't remember anything except the dreams after blacking out. The first time, the unbearing pain of being swallowed and dying kept me awake. Nothing this time.

Maybe I am just getting used to it. I am, after all, very hardy when it comes to pain.

One last look to the closed tight windows and the empty cage under the sheet, and I take my leave.

No one comes to arrest me. No one cares. Only me and my trusty guards, catching up on an alley and moving out of Harbor Bay.

And then, I don't even get to meet up anyone in charge. I only receive a paper again, in haste.

New instructions to track the escapees. If it is because my cousin has put in a word, or if it is for the fact that in the end we all failed, from soldier to king, who knows.

_You'll disappear and no one will ever know what happened to Daliah Viper, the merry widow. And no one will care._

The backlash will come. It is just a matter of time.

I expect the transport. Somewhere to the outskirts, into less populated territory, filled with the same mud and rubble that any red village has to offer, standing between trees or on the edges of nothingness. It's a probably distance for a small group of people in a few days. Even if everyone is still unsure what kind of transportation was used this time. They didn't escape through the water, at least, or so is the most common agreement. 

I receive a pack of chained, black dogs, drool and froth around their nuzzles and chaps. One lonely figure stands in the middle of them, dressed in the same black and green patches as all the Vipers in uniforms usually do. I recognize the face filled with indifference and a small dotted birthmark under his heavy-lidded green eyes. They're freckled in brown, and they're as thoughtful as unreadable. 

My guards hiss and sizzle behind me, but they are quiet, even if they look very closely at us.

"Hadrien," I say, arching my back and trying to stand straight.

"Lady Viper."

It feels good to hear that. Like an ointment for dried out skin, refreshing.

"Your father sends his regards. And my father sends me." If he rolled his eyes at that, I wouldn't be surprised. Hector has shown a certain set of blank slated, no nonsense attitude, and Hadrien at least has already proven to do what I tell him. Pragmatic people have their uses. They at least don't act out wrapped in emotions. But as reasonable as it is, I don't trust any Viper. Just as his father, he may be useful. That's all I can yet tell.

I watch the dogs. They're not my dogs. They don't get to sleep in my bed, or live in a house to be coddled and paraded around as shining shields and at display. They aren't my pack. But they will do.

The chains rattle loosely on the harnesses.

"Let them go."

He shrugs it off, but doesn't try to take them over. Instead, he just steps aside, and the black patched bodies surround me, alerted. Dark and brown, yellow and black, they watch me.

I stretch out both my hands. The muscles under their fur move.

"Sit."

The bodies stop, ears flat. Sit down on their spots.

I lull them into my control as if I was the chain on their harnesses.

"Good. We won't need those."

I free them off the leashes, and they sit in line, pushed by only my emotions and control.

"Good," I repeat, sniffing in ten noses at the scents floating around. "May we proceed?"

"Lead the way," Hadrien shrugs again, holding his belt filled with deadly weaponry.

And I do. We don't find anything the next eight hours, and the name on the list, the person I was send for, is already gone. But again. I lead. That's what matters.  
  



	12. Twinge

  
_twinge_  
_-a sharp unpleasant sensation usually felt in some specific part of the body_  
_-tingle, throb_

* * *

**_T_** he name I have received is the one of another red-blooded anomaly, but he is gone when I reach his old home.

Questions asked don't retrieve any more results.

Word says that it is the same with the remaining one in Harbor Bay. Escaped from whatever confinement was planned. All in vain because they escape over and over again.

I spend a whole day in the dirt and dust, rummaging through the reminders of the villages for a trail.

Hoping perhaps they are just hiding somewhere in one meager basement. The red people in Archeon and any bigger city wear a piece of cloth around their arms to make their status even more clear. In the villages, the ruined and broken rest of rubble and bits of finer houses reserved for trade or guards posted, you wouldn't need to see any cloth. They all look the same to me in their blatant state of misery.

The faces are scared , the eyes downcast. The children are thin, the remaining parents just as hollow. The absence of anyone above a certain age is blatantly clear, even here. Those that have been conscripted, last year when the age range was still higher, or this month when it was set to 15. Collected like chicken and perched together to be shipped away.

The dogs sniff around the reminders of the buildings. We barge through doors without warning, and people bend to me and avert their gaze. In tow, I carry a strange pack of animals and people.

Hadrien is absently following my lead. But who can tell what goes on behind his bleak face. He rubs his nose from time to time and has one hand on a weapon, and another on one dog in soft command.

The banshee and the stoneskin haven't left their post. Looking for me to keep my tongue, or not step out of line. But at least they are polite, and they accept me leading with the begrudging mentality of soldiers. Their ground teeth and stiff bodies remind me of my dead husband and Ellyn every time I take a look, and it sits in my neck. The truth about the corpses and the war, and that I am one of them.

Samson was right. _I am playing good soldier._ And my reports are declining any victory. It would be humiliating if I didn't catch the drift that no one is successful.

I vow to keep that thought inside me and bury it, to make it hard to see for any mind reader that might try. He doesn't need to know I concede to the fear and think about him at all.

I also vow to never return to Harbor Bay. I leave my weakness like the dogs shed fur on their pillows. But with selfish, glowing content, I keep the moment on the pier, a second to breathe and talk to someone that has become a stranger over the years.

I come back home with my entourage and new, fresh scars that carry a tinge of frustration.

It is a silent return. No victory bells and voices rise over rooftops. Our group flees the grimy air by the sea and the dirty villages.

No one waits for me. I don't get picked up , not even by my father.  
That is when a cramp starts coiling my lower stomach.

It explains why I behave so wrong. So emotional. Why my skin does not fit me.  
I haven't felt that kind of pain for a long time. I didn't bleed in imprisonment or resituating with my family.

My period has chosen the worst possible time to return.

Dread accompanies the irritating pain and the feeling of too much blood flowing without my control with every step and every hasty move I take.

Calpurnia and my father had a talk about my cycle, possible children. And while I don't ever plan on getting pregnant, least of all from Samson, the lack of my cycle was reassuring.  
It meant I could forget about precautions for a while. I'll have to do something against the pain and care for...well, me.

This is unwanted. But when isn't it? What woman wants to have excruciating pain and discomfort once a month?

I keep that discomfort to myself as I move to West Archeon. Since it is early afternoon, the house is mostly empty. The backyard and small conservatory are empty. The kennel is bustling in the regular movement of four-legged animals. My dogs, the big grey and brown slobbering bodies, as well as my father, are nowhere to be seen.

Hadrien vanishes in the hallways after a courteous goodbye. He has been as silent as me. I will need to press on and interrogate him properly, it seems, he is not much of a talker. More old and new papers wait for me. I try to catch up on it.

And sitting or lying and reading is easier now that I feel the constant pounding from my lower body.

I still need to get a red boy back and out of trouble. And I want Calpurnia's whereabouts and head. She has hidden by now. We'll need to neutralize her. As well as the aspect of Samson not around the house as I thought he would.

The contempt and bad thoughts surround me like an invisible layer of mud thick on my skin . Even when I shower and rub the sweat and pain off my skin. I see the bruises that have bloomed, feel my tense muscles. It doesn't stop the inconvenient feeling of being dirty.

The next morning moves by like haven't come back from a strange long absence and bring new scars with me. I get a brief meeting with some servants early, then a shadow of Arven creeping through to leave, but not my mother. She just sleeps into late morning and makes herself comfortable wherever. Since my birth ruined her career as a musical genius, she prefers to stay in her practice room or with her entourage.

Every day I stay in the abandoned room and the split house, I remember why I preferred to either wander around with my father or stay with Larentia.  
My body bloats in my clothes. I wish someone would hit me in the head instead of this particular pain. I'm pretty sure my heels will just break on the floor. It's a wonder my feet even fit in.

My guards are still around. They catch me in the foyer. Hadrien is there as well, uninterested in conversation with them. He has a pair of spectacles on his nose that have half slid down to his nostrils. He scribbles into a small, leather-bound book. The pen clicks once before he snaps the book shut. The loud pang of paper and words is the only sound in the silence.

"Where is everyone?" I ask. My voice wavers unwelcome.

"There is a meeting at ten," he answers without giving me a _real_ answer. "I was told to wait for you and make sure you get there."

I give him another long look. "So you'll go with me today to the palace."

"It seems like it." He bends his head slowly to one side, half in thought. "Those two as well?"

The smaller one with the small eyes in a face as sour pale as any Viper can be, pounces from one leg to the other. Soft-spoken, but not very friendly, I don't even know his full name yet. I'll have someone run some background check on the ticks Maven has put on me.

Asher is the one speaking up, the more amicable one of the two. He reaches over most of us in broad-shouldered disinterest.

"Until we receive other orders, we're here to stay."

I can't dismiss that. So I drag them with me as Hadrien and I make our way to Whitefire.

"We never really met," I try to provoke any kind of reaction when we have settled and move out. I feel naked without big creatures around me. "Even though I know you and your fathers' faces."

"You grew up in the capital and rift, our branch is from the other side of a lowlife province," Hadrien answers. He pushes his glasses up again, blinking behind the construction when his heavy-lidded eyes focus again.

I huff out a breath. "I know that."

He only repeats some chewed up information. "We're responsible for the established trade routes and transports. Even with all the technical prowess, animals are still useful. And my father bred dogs for years as well."

"Did you breed my uncle's dogs?"

His face opens a crack, eyebrows shifting. "Not personally. I studied abroad most of the time. They were one of the last litters of their kind. Others are more effective and easier to train."

I have seen him handle dogs. He is good with them. "What did you study, and why did you stop?"

"I'm...well...our family deals in animals. I studied their biology, genetics," he stumbles over it a little. Then he pushes the glasses up again, more a nervous touch than necessary this time. "I should have married a girl. I didn't want to, so my father cut my studies. Then last month happened. Now we are all here."

"Now we are all here," I repeat absent, staring at the complex across the square. I'm back in Whitefire. I'm back, and everything whirls around too fast. Another cramp squeezes my body together. With a snarl, I push the stairs upwards.

My father's chair is empty on the round table when I arrive in the same room that I had an earlier meeting last week. It feels like a lot more than just five days.

Time is such a weird concept. A month in this marriage felt like an eternity and dying felt like a dream. Fighting feels like a rush, but still the days since the coup and before stretch.

I stare at Ptolemus across the table, try to convey some sort of greeting. Apparently, since no one so far has mocked me for being weak, he has held word. I expected nothing else. Viper for Samos, we hold our end of the deal. We served together and we saved each other. I want to keep that in my shriveled heart and cramping body. Then my eyes fling back to the threshold where I left inconspicuous in thought looking Hadrien and the guards.

"Am I too early or too late?" I ask. Provos is the only other one greeting me, and the only one answering now.

"Well, Volo Samos has been preoccupied with something. Your father excuses himself, Lady Viper," Provos says, wrinkled hand tapping on the table. "He felt unwell the last days. And he didn't look very good."

"One Viper brother had a weak heart, the other has a weak stomach," a voice behind me ponders.

"And his daughter has been released from murder charges," another adds.

I don't get to snap around to either Osanos and whoever else of the lot is at it again. Ptolemus does the job for me. He just moves his hand, a fist curled together under the table. Something I assume as metal creaks before a thudding, shuddering sound rings through the council room.  
Provos looked mildly uninterested before. He tries to hide his amusement and annoyance now.

"Oh no," I say, taking my seat, legs scraping disharmonic over the polished floor. "There must have been a loose screw."

I receive one long glare from Osanos. One more from Macanthos. And Iral would never say anything to change this.

"May we proceed?" Provos asks, it sounds like he doesn't really want to proceed. He is clearly entertained, but a duty is a duty, and so he reins the unruly children into the reason we have gathered. "Someone ought to get him a new chair too. We don't want you standing the whole meeting, that would be...laughable inappropriate."

It is like walking on hot coals, but luckily my months in disfavor have taught me to act humble. It comes in handy if you have to brush the egos of older men in particular.

Still, being the only Viper feels wrong. And I left my animals behind today. Not even knowing where the dogs or my father make me nervous. Worrying for people is bad for my mental strength.

It doesn't last long. Half the talk is about the losses in the last weeks, another fruitless attempt of playing catch with rebels. A scuffle about damages. Everyone is very quiet about Habor Bay, though. Nothing new comes out of the meeting. Everyone keeps what they know close to their vests. I watch Iral with interest. I'll get to them later. I need to figure out how to proceed.  
Hector and Hadrien have done a good job in supporting my father though at least here in the capital and in the general matters.

"Thanks for that," I whisper as soon as the ordeal has passed. Hadrien keeps a distance between himself and Ptolemus. It is the second time I thank him this week. This can't become a habit.

"No one gets to talk to family this way," he answers simply, and we both chew on that, engraved and marked into our souls. We part ways on the corridor. It's a busy day. It gets only more hectic.


	13. Slink

_slink_

_-to move about in a sly or secret manner_

* * *

  
**_T_** he next day isn't easier or more pleasant. My guards don't dare to wander in the mansion, so at least here I can roam or stay however I want. And since I have received no new name, and no more staking out, I gladly take the time to recover.

I won't be much of assistance to anyone if I keep wailing over my period. Yes, sure, I don't want children. I don't want this. Precautions need to be locked back in place. Something needs to be arranged.

I wake up again unharmed and in full control, plagued by the nightmare of being able to conceive a child. So I also inquire about someone else and his whereabouts.  
Samson has vanished from the face of the world.

He hasn't been to the Viper mansion.

He hasn't shown his face in Whitefire.

I could think he only avoids me. But even when we clash, he usually gives me some sort of order and demands things from me. My fear to be replaced and murdered could almost be laughable when he isn't even around. 

When I start to sniff after his clear absence, no one that usually gets pestered by his arrogance has seen him. I make sure to check that very thoroughly. The first and easiest to ask, of course, is my father.

I need to talk to him anyway about money and other things. So I renew the knot of my hair pulled together and make my way to the study.

Even from below the hallway, the dogs notice me and my pattern of steps. I can hear Runt and One Ear yowl and bark in excitement, and I feel them through the wall. When I stand in front of the door, they scratch and jump on the other side.

As soon as the handle is pulled, they flood over me with joy. I scratch their heads, dodge their slobbering tongues on my face, hug them. They smell of big dog, the long fur tickles my nose. Their heads fit on the crook of my arm and my stomach, they press themselves against me. For a moment, I don't even care it feels inconvenient. 

Battle Scar's backside hangs half out from under the desk. He has squeezed himself below my father's legs instead of lying on the cushion.

"Good day," my father greets me. He looks as pale and sickly worried as he always does, but his hands tighten around the papers they hold. In the light of day, I can see the sheen of sweat gathering in the rim of his collar, just below the greying hair. It's not hot in the room. The wind is even cold as it sweeps through the ripped open windows. 

I just came to ask questions. But. Some part in me wants to ensure he isn't going to drop dead. Vanish from my life as silently as he has returned in the last months.

I round up the table and sit on the edge, only a hand width away from his figure on the chair. The dogs follow and stay around us in a wall of protective attention. But are also not opposed to receive more pets from me. At least they missed me as much as I missed them.

"Are you avoiding the Vipers?" I ask. "You and Hector seemed to be swell friends."

For a moment, he smiles, that amused tug of his lips that he always has when I make a joke, between us. The amused gleam looks weak in his sunken eyes. "No. But you are doing well on your own, maybe you don't need me anymore."

That only reminds me of the day the paperwork for inheritance got signed. I don't appreciate the doomed way that he speaks about it.

"People in the meetings don't like me very much," I remark. "Did you hear about the chairs mysteriously breaking yesterday?"

Now that makes the smile grow. "How strange that it was only the chairs of the people insulting you."

"So strange," I agree. "I should send my cousin a gift basket for entertaining us and taking care of them. I don't know how you handle it without breaking their bones. It is frustrating. They won't see me as anything but..." I swallow on the words, they burn in my throat. "The merry widow."

"Despite that, you _are_ Lady Viper. But give a dog a bad name and hang him," My father explains.  
The image of a red-blooded boy on a noose blinks into my head. Runt growls low at my feet. Battle Scar and One Ear's whimpers pierces through the wood. 

My father rubs his big head with yellow eyes that press against his leg, and the tail starts wagging again. The harsh sounds of the tails hitting the wooden desk are the only disturbance of the relative peaceful silence.

"Some of them never liked me, they won't like you, " he continues, hand moving up. He rubs his temple, blinking heavy. "It won't change. Respect comes a long, long way, Daliah, you know all about it. As long as you don't wave a gun in front of their faces as you did with your husband, you will be fine."

"Speaking about him." I scratch Runt's back with playful force and she shudders in joy. "Has Samson bothered you the last days?"

"I haven't seen him since the night the silver forces went to stake out the ruins and seize the traitors and the scarlet guard," he informs me. "He doesn't tell me everything he does. Just as I avoid to tell him some things of my own. We are not friends, Daliah, we are necessary associates, as far as I care."

That is not the answer I wanted to hear. I want to tell him what I have seen, what I have done, but nothing comes out of my mouth. I value my tongue too much.

"Are you alright?" I whisper and lean forward. It pokes me in my stomach with the constant, dripping bad feeling, but I ignore it. My father has it worse. "Provos said you looked sick the other day."

"I'm fine, just old and tired, Daliah." His green eyes are pointed towards the ground when he sighs. He lies to me so blatantly it makes me angry. "And Provos likes to act quiet and after all rules and etiquette. But he loves gossip and scandals more than anything if they don't concern him."

I think about his amused face and the half-hidden smile when the chair fell creaking under the small manipulation from a metal bender. His reaction and my fathers aren't that different in that regard. My eyebrows draw together. 

"We all like entertainment from time to time. Do you really trust him?"

My father leans back in the chair that means everything to us. The high seat of this house, and the place that I will defend with my life if necessary. "He has been my friend for twenty years, and as far as I am concerned, he won't backstab anyone that doesn't stand against his house. Provos isn't one you need to fear, even if he could break all your bones with a twitch of his hand. He is still working for the crown, as all of are." 

_We all play along because we can't do anything else._

The crown. 

I puff out a breath.

Isn't that an interesting way to say that he sits there quietly . Serves a queen and her son that have taken the throne after the brutal murder of his father? As always, my father avoids direct connotation to names. He called Maven Calore a boy. He knew Tiberias Calore well enough to tell stories about his dead wife on a late night , flatter around him in old tall tales about war. The king and my father were just men. 

Men that knew each other well. Just as Provos, given his long years in service. But none of them even remarked something. They don't seem fazed beyond their need for self-preservation and the caution that they displayed on the day after the old king died.

Poor old Tiberias Calore.

His older son, and the one from Coriane Jacos nonetheless, on the run, and he already forgotten. A mocking footnote in a speech and slander.

I guess that wasn't the legacy he thought he would have. 

Not that I have any mercy for the burner prince on the run. I don't have a grain for sympathy. And besides that. I was never royal. I was never worth much before I stepped up the ladder in bloodshed and deceive. 

"I want you to get another opinion, and another Skonos healer involved," I demand. "I want you to stay back and rest for the next days."

"Very well, Lady Viper." One more smile in his pale, sunken face.

"No. I mean it. Father." I stretch my hand out and touch his. It shakes and quivers with a slight tremor, and I don't like that more than the lies about his health.

"Was there something else you wanted to talk about?" 

"It can wait," I whisper and snatch my fingers away from his grip.

* * *

Right back in Whitefire, I bind in Sentinel Viper. After Calpurnia has gone off too, I have started to implore my cousin with the mask as well. Sentinels, after all, has another eye on Whitefire. Even if I am painfully aware the queen can just play me and command them as well.

Still. No trace of Samson. It is a little terrifying to think about the butcher traveling anywhere in Norta with the knives in his head sharpened. Ready to purge, ready to leech information out of heads, ready to murder. And I have no clue where he has gone and when he will come back for me.

People disappearing from the radar is a reoccurring theme. Willingly or not. It adds to the suspension in the air.

It keeps coming back to me as I rummage around the palace and wait with bated breath and disgruntled patience for _the king_ to give me some new orders.

I round a corner, for once not following Ptolemus anywhere. I have left the guards behind too, just for a moment. That is when I feel like someone has pricked me, watching eyes boring in the back of my head.

I don't stop walking. But I keep away from the wing that holds personal quarters and a jar with a spider. Instead, I just start walking to an exit, as if I was heading home in the brim of orange evening light. My face mirrors in a window when I stop as if I want to ponder over the progress of the repairs.

They have at least cleaned the Square and work on the rest.

The steps following me are very silent. My ears wouldn't pick them up.

The palace is infested with a mass of my bugs and spiders by now. They crash against the walls like tidal waves if I want them to. The biggest specimens easily pick up the silent movements vibrating through the corridor behind me. The spiders sway in the air circulating and brim with the electricity and static. I try to blend the sensation out in favor of finding out who follows me today.

Naturally, spies are everywhere in this environment. Many of us have it in our silver blood to stalk and wait.

_As I never tire to say- predators._

Sonya wears no sparkly dress today.

It seems all the ladies have sobered up a little in terms of color. Most of them still look too good in black. And for some, nothing much changes.

Even her nails have lost the gem coated glitter on top. They are still sharp as her fingers wrap around the biggest spider hanging from the wall.

We have done this before. The last time my spiders found her, she was curious. Now she wraps it up more tightly and my sight gets obscured by shadows and warm, dark fingers. It only gets smaller and smaller, a cage made of flesh. Walls caving like a trap. I slip out of the eight eyes and legs back into my own body.

I didn't like the way Salin looked at me. Now maybe my chance to find out why.

"Drop the spider," I tell her, still feeling the tight grip and sharp nails on my own skin in a shiver. "I prefer my creatures to be unharmed. Even if they aren't specifically bred for me."

Her eyes are unreadable, mostly. Not angry, at least.

"Please," I add. My throat seems to explode when I use that word.

She complies. With a quick move, she opens her palm and drops my spider. As if she was throwing a petal. The spider glides a foot through the air on a silken string and then gently lands on the swift legs. It scurries away, into the safety of a high corner, away from us.

"I don't appreciate being followed," I tell her. With the heels today, I am at least not feeling too small against her smooth silhouette stretching before me in the corridor. "You were good though. Very silent."

"Clearly not when you have already noticed me." She smiles a trained smile, not the gritted teeth I call the same.

"I got a few years experience on you," I answer. As well as a decent amount of paranoia. But she doesn't need to know that. "What is this about? Did I step on someone's toes?"

She still smiles at me. Her lips aren't the same intense red anymore, a more muted color, just as the rest of her outfit, to blend in even better now.

"I was just hoping to catch you alone." Her charm is lost on me. She knows that. And she lies. This has to be about something else.

"For sure," I scoff softly. "You can be happy that my husband isn't around, he wouldn't ask."

The threat ricochets relatively useless. She doesn't even move her eyebrows. For a second she reminds me very much of Ara, and I feel something bubbling in my stomach. It is for the best they never know I helped to get her removed.

"If you don't tell me, I will have to wait and see, and you know I love to do that."

"I was just curious," she shrugs it off. "You aren't that revered, still. But you've had a social rise the last weeks."

"Some things have changed," I answer, tugging my face into an acceptable half-smile, gifting it to corpses and lost members of all of our families. "For better or worse. We'll have to see."

"You're so very angry Lady Viper," Sonya sways past me, brushing my arm with her hand. Since I only tolerate touch in some circumstances and from a handful of people, I don't appreciate it now very much. The hand is soft, and it doesn't smash me like it could have smashed the spider. I am still on the verge of reacting aggressive. "You ought to let go of some of your stress from time to time. But at least you don't faint anymore."

"Your worry is heartwarming," I answer. " I'd tell you to greet the rest of your family, but I see them tomorrow at the discourse in the council room. Have a nice day, Sonya."

And with that, we part. We stalk off heels clicking in opposite directions. We act like we didn't just catch each other spying.

* * *

Since I have nothing to find as of yet, I just decide to visit Maven Calore as a spider that night. He is back, I know it, it wasn't very common knowledge at all that he went to Harbor Bay and returned. Given the delicacy of the situation, it wouldn't make sense at all. It was a secret, a surprise. An ambush. And it failed. I'm curious if he is crushed by that or has plans to proceed.

Like most nights, even when not busy with something, he is as wide awake as I am. He's always a little tousled and stirs in his room, sometimes even pacing like a caged animal.

When the spider legs tap against the clean glass, he is already nearby. This time, he only lifts the lid and lowers the glass. The spider hastily steps out of it, on the table. He doesn't pick it up. Instead, he just sits down on his own bed again. The spider observes everything calmly.

Nothing much has changed in the blank space of the room. I recognize now that this is not the blankness of someone clearing out things. Not like my mother abandoning my room and leaving only little remainders of my youth behind. This is the clean slate of someone unable to really have too many facets of himself or at least isn't expressing whatever interest he has. the spider in the cupboard almost counts as decor.

"I wondered when you'd drop by. The last days were not as successful as planned, but never worry, Lady Viper, you did good enough to stay alive," he says. He talks for himself as much as he talks to me. "Ptolemus at least is smitten to have you back. Maybe him not dying and you saving him did have a few perks after all. He clearly cares for you."

It is as if he just wants to fill the quiet emptiness that lurks around the room. Not that his face gives anything away. But his voice does, at least to me. I can recognize that because I was plagued by someone in my mind, even if not for the same amount of time.

The spider jumps boldly on the mattress. It doesn't make any sound and doesn't sink in as it softly creeps over his foot up and settles on his drawn-up leg.

"I'll have something again that may interest you, in a few days," he informs the spider sitting on his knee. "If you don't ask questions. And do your job."

The spider shakes at that, a nod of recognition.

"It's more pleasant to work with you than I assumed, Lady Viper."

_It's because I don't talk back. It is also because I know what you are. And because of that, you don't even need to lie anymore.  
_

The spider's pincers are yearning to sink into his pale skin.

"Since you are so invested in listening to what I have to say. Just between us." He smiles, thin, a shadow of something amused. "You're having dinner with my mother and Samson's father in two days, I hear."

The spider legs freeze. The hair stands up on both our bodies, mine, and the spiders, in alarm.

"It was meant as a surprise, see it as a gift I give you this information."

What a gift. I'm not reassured at all. 


	14. Set

_set_

_-to decide upon (the time or date for an event) usually from a position of authority_

* * *

**_I_** don't stop thinking about Maven's face and his gifted words the next day. It pesters me like the cramps. It's like I have been cracked in the jaw again. My neck hurts, my body is tense, but what is new. It means at least I feel my body. The unpleasant alternative would be falling through the cracks again and losing it.

My father doesn't even come down for breakfast. The study is mine this morning.

The papers have named me a while ago, and I may represent us all partially when I sit through meetings, but with my father on the backseat, I truly have to sink into leading. I lead on the field and I lead now, in this moment of taking a short, at least partial break, from leading outside in the pack of dogs. Until new orders arrive.

I demanded respect all my life. Now I finally get to have a taste of what the worst and the best parts of leading alone are.

The first time I sit down in the study, I take my time.

I am scared, scared someone will take this away. And the moment the fear hits my system in cold sweat, I want to slap myself.

I made it this far. 

_No._

I will not be replaced or disappear.

I breathe in the scents of the animals and the dust around me. The birds all have their own distinctive sound and smell, and the dogs patrolling around have left traces along with the fur shed on their pillows.

My fingers slowly trace the lines of the chair, the intricate details, the high back, the sigil. It's cold now, still, because no one has bothered to close the windows overnight.

My fingers find scratches in the polished, dark wood. It's smooth even in the imperfections and scars. It's like feeling the lines etched into my face. Familiar and still strange.

Reddish veins seem to creep through the dark, but the silver inlays overshadow the almost mahogany tint. As always, expensive over anything else.

I sink into the harsh cushion. Lean my head against the back.

The wood becomes a part of me. Figuratively, of course. And just for a moment, I recount the lines of people that have sat in it before me. The names rake beneath my closed eyelids. Unsurprisingly, many years of Vipers have brought up the best and the worst in our family, and rarely names are remembered if you haven't gone down in a blaze of glory or committed the worst crimes. Since Norta has no religion except power and silver blood, I make my predecessors my guides, just for a moment, trying to imagine that maybe one day, someone will think of my name the same way.

I take a deep breath and inhale a cloud of smoke and musk streaming from the backyard and the high chimneys into the morning air and the creaks into the cold room.

This seat is the closest I will ever come to being a queen, this seat is my personal throne.

Temporarily, for now.

The sheer memory of my father's doomed voice is enough to make me weary, it leaves a stale taste in my mouth. And then there is always still the paranoia.

I discard that notion as fast as I can.

_This is my place, I always wanted this. I have no choice, no mercy, and no time to waste. I have to stand tall. I am a Viper. I am born with strength, cunning, and poison, and not with weakness._

I am clenching the wood like a constrictor snake its prey, muscles flexing and body writhing, unwilling to let go, even if I break something.

The small bird in the cage trills loudly, a fine pitched morning song. Then the dogs come barging in after me and take their seats. They pant softly, tongues hanging.

My father has left me with the courtesy of a stack of finely sorted and neatly ordered papers, and when I look at one, I see finely drafted explanations and notes on the edges, names, short bursts of questions to answer or to propose.

The sun rises and the clock ticks away precious seconds. I plan my even tighter schedule now.

To my unpleasant surprise, no one loses screws on the seats of my enemies today. I can't hide behind Ptolemus shoulder. I wouldn't try to hide behind Volo. I suppose people do that more often, cowering behind him. I know that I can respect the way he works and acts. But I wouldn't attempt to try and cower behind him the same way as I do with his son. It would be laughable at best, and useless at worst. He sees right through my attempts to win back favor and slice a better deal. A lot of people try.

I want to run to Evangeline again, but I don't find the time.

All I have is both Hadrien and Loren as well as my precious new guards flanking me. One is talking to me about things other eyes have seen, the other only laconically remarks small things.

It's strange seeing Loren shrink between the others, while Hadrien looks questioning at worst when someone mistreats him, but far from caring too much.

All of them leave me alone when I enter certain rooms. I take Runt with me inside, though, and she snaps at hands and bristles dangerously close to me.

My father's words on the pages are gentle helpers, telling me that _Power and Strength_ are all we have.

In the evening, I drink my pain away, trying to eat while I work. I need to force myself to chew. Hector finds his way to the room and back to me.

"Something else about Rocasta, Delphie, Harbor Bay?" I sift through names on the paper, almost at random. The words blur a little before my eyes. "Anything I need to know?"

"A minor problem in the western province. Not a big city, and not much to lose. Three dogs, one animosi, little with value taken," Hector placates for me. "But we managed to strengthen the perimeter around the town and the supposed agitators are dead or arrested. Those smugglers, by the way, are hard to catch."

"Who knew that smugglers don't just wave a flag about their whereabouts and the stolen goods?" I scoff softly. "Replace the dogs and the silver, and keep it the way it is. Anything else?"

"Trouble with the trading routes," he outlines, pointing with one rough finger over the map. It's always surprising to see how many of us are spread thin over the whole of Norta, and maybe even beyond. "Ambushes on the outer routes were quite frequent."

"More losses?"

"Not so far, no, the attempts were more desperate than anything else. Most of the scum knows where it should stay and crawl."

I can imagine that. "Thank you, you are free to leave, Hector. Unless there is something else."

He stays, crosses his arms. "Your father told me to keep an eye for your husband."

I lean forward. "He did?"

"We tracked his steps in Archeon before he left, but he seems to have vanished after taking a jet to an unknown location."

"A jet?" He could be anywhere then. I feign being distraught so badly that my words drip of venom. "My poor husband, I do hope nothing bad has happened to him." _Before I can do worse to him, that is._

Somehow though, I'm sure I will see him surrounded by other mind flayers of the same reeking pain in a few days.

"He's hardier than he looks," Hector answers, a warning, perhaps. There is nothing pleased or respectful in his bleak face, at least.

I look back quizzically, eyebrows drawing together. "You did have the pleasure to watch him in an arena, I suppose. Undefeated."

The memory of Cantos swinging into a balustrade and a wall, bones smashing and blood flowing freely from Samson's head still leaves a warm trail in my stomach.

Hector is the kind of man that doesn't lose himself in some outstanding story adorned with details. He cuts straight to the chase. I start to appreciate this side of my family for their qualities of serving me.

"Once, a few years ago, his opponent ripped half his face away, and he still stood. Before he made them eat metal bits. Shoved them right down the throat by themselves, like razors, and he just sat there watching."

"More creative than I would have assumed," I answer in distaste, feeling the fingers that have bruised me now, almost lingering over me with an invisible force. Eyes that never seem to sleep, and always look sharp blue, clean-shaven face and flawless blue attire. "I appreciate the effort, Hector."

"I'm just keeping an eye on the family, now that we are all here," is his only answer, and for a moment I can see the practical, pragmatic side that swims in Hadrien's face. "Well, not all."

I think about the dead, the lost, the fleeing, and the ones that have gone off to their own strange pathways. "No. But too many Vipers in one place always ends in fighting anyway, maybe it is for the best."

"Speaking of fighting, Calpurnia has retreated into the summer residence in Summerton," he continues, leaning forward on the other side of the table. "She has been hiding there for around a week now."

"Let her hide," I say, and I mean not only Calpurnia now. Let them all crawl into holes and cower together. "Maybe she thinks she is safe. She isn't. But let her believe it for a while. Before we collapse her burrowed hideout over her head."

I stay inside the study until my eyes burn and my ears tingle. In the eerie grey and white lights, creeping into my room through a cracked window, small bodies have started dancing under the discs that radiate the shine.

The moths flutter around the room in joyous curiosity. They scatter over the table and the back of my chair.

I stretch my finger, and one of them lands. A soft, black body with dangling antennas. Much too purposeful without my direct control.

"I wonder," I tell the moth, even though it can't understand me as a human can. I am no bat. I talk in a deep-seated frequency that makes it shiver and fold its wings. "Which one of you it is right now."

The moth creeps over the back of my hand and flaps the large black wings again. Another lands on my hair.

Moths in my hair and on my body, comforting. As the day my marriage was announced to me by Loren. But secretly as frightening as the moth with the broken wing hovering in a jar, kept by a man with long fingers and the eyes of a shark.

"This is cheap," I tell the moth in a hushed tone. There is only one person that I would not hold accountable in anger for this blatant espionage. But I would know if she was here, and if she would watch me, wouldn't I?

The moths have no answers. I don't want to hurt them.

They still sit on my body when I am finished. When I open the window wide, they flutter away into the blackness of the night and the swamp of light polluting the sky. 

* * *

On my second day in the chair, I think I have found my balance. I tell that to myself at least. It isn't that easy. Nothing has changed since the first day. And the closer my excourse to the dinner with the whisper pack turns on the clock; the longer I have to wait for a taste of blood, the more agitated and fragile I turn in my still lingering frustration. I try to be stone and scars. On the outside, no one questions my doing.

It helps to sit in the chair. I read my father's notes, and I choose to ignore some of them, just to negotiate a better offer. I want to make the best out of it. Animals and red servants are hard to maintain. Feeding all the mouths is pricey. And I don't come from a family that is governing a region of Norta, and we don't have any metal essential for the warfare.

It's a shame, really, I could have been the wife of a governor, or at least involved with anyone. I see how my father chose Macanthos. The need to keep our specialized units in the military and the defense and reinforcements. Now, though, House Macanthos is no more.

I bite out my teeth trying to negotiate that with Volo, though. My first attempt at slithering in with Laris and some others after the meeting has worked, but he is not where he is because he easily gives in. I knew that. But I still have to try.

He lets me smolder and wait for half an hour, and when I finally get a word, the only stoic answer I receive is a no, coupled with a dried out retort for my boldness. I smile it away, showing my teeth. But I don't overstep any line there.

It leaves a sour taste in my mouth, and that only gets worse.

After the whole ordeal, something in me shifts and slides. My thoughts derail, and I lose my control over my body. No one controls me. I'm only lost by myself. My world is blurry in breathing tension. The second I pass a stair in that state of mind, I am defeated. Not by a person, but a sleek underground.

I slide over the ground. My heel slips, and it cracks with a sound that reminds me of my spine and jaw breaking. I crash almost into the wall at the bottom.

The ticks in my back watch me half ignorant, half amused.

I scramble up as fast as I can this time. Asher stares at the ceiling when I finally brush the fall off. 

"Anything to say, Thany?"

"Nothing, Lady Viper."

I make him carry my broken shoe. He holds it like a broken pistol. It's almost worth twisting my ankle.

I have to walk barefoot through Whitefire and home afterward. But I stomp forward with my head high as much as possible.

It is like some beggar wandering through a palace after rejection, and it burns my ego.

I am always uniformed, always in high boots or heels that at least make me a little bigger in the face of being seen as delicate or petite. Being barefoot is the bane of my existence, especially now that I am in charge.

It is the same high collars, the same topknot, and the little to no jewelry except for animals crawling over my skin. The spiders dangle from my ears like venomous drops, sit on my hair as a deadly hat, and sway over my skin finer than any silk could ever. They are still and always will be what I wear best.

Judging the way people see my ruined face and scarred cheek and brow, rhe cliff of my cheekbone and split mouth. the disgust stays the same. I had hoped for more fear than disgust. But even without a skirt or dress and new battlewounds I stay a woman from the lower end of a branch.

Long forgotten seem the days of the widow attire now. No cobweb lace, no green-tinted bugs. No swaying skirts most of these days. I can't allow for people to see me just as _the widow._

So strange. I haven't worn a skirt for a while and dresses when I was still watching Atara and Heron. At the thought of Heron Welle at the river, disgust creeps inside my soul. Her calling me by some other name, and her notion of staying away. Still far away, with her father.

_Someone is always willing to negotiate as long as all the participants share the same blood color._

I meant to inquire about that way earlier. Before I got sucked into a maelstrom of fights, search actions, administration and meetings, of counting the reinforcement of animosi, dogs, and other units.

Her family has some connections to people that are not nortan. And that may be nothing interesting. But some may consider political ties to another country treason, some may find that more interesting than me. It depends to whom Governor Welle is talking about and what he does in his spare time instead of his job.

_Time to make a move, collapse some burrow. And find out what all that is about. As long as I can._

I'm supposed to be up and away fast again. And soon. Any moment, now, hopefully before the dreaded dinner. I feel it in the fibers of my nerves with anticipation, because despite my fear of failing, I have a penchant for vengeance. And what would be better and more satisfying than finally catching that pack of rats that has bitten and broken me and drown them?

I want to hunt them. Not only because what they have brought in disarray the last month. But because the hunt is intoxicating, and I owe the red rats a few scars to repay the favor. Everytime they slip through the nets, everytime they escape and leave more dead and more ruins behind. Wasted money. 

Imagine if someone had just executed Mare Barrow and Tiberias Calore in their cells before the bowl. It would have been a fast gunshot, but it would at least have been done. It would at least mean that this is over. But it's not. Here we are. I need to make the most of the little support I have and hold it tightly.

I get Loren back and involved. He's at least in this short time proven relatively useful as an escort and helps to keep tabs. And this now is not different.

He waits as he often does these days, formless in grey, silent, and somber. He almost is so still in the doorway I don't notice him at first. It is because he steps along the vibrating edges of a web that I look up from more reports Hector has dragged to me.

The dogs are tranquil at my feet, half asleep in the last remains of this summer sun. Only one gives a short alarm noting Loren's presence. I lull him back to sleep. Let them enjoy their break and that last rays of light. The fall will come, then the winter. The thought of time passing is almost abstract for a moment. How can such a short span of time feel eternal and still passing too fast in red sunrises and too bright light?

What will fall bring?

What will winter do to me?

I used to love the season. Now, with a frostbitten voice stuck in the back of my head, I am yet to find out.

With a sigh, I put the paper down and look at my cousin.

"I want you to go back to Summerton," I tell Loren, brushing some sprinkle of dust off my sleeve.

"I don't understand," he says, swallowing harshly, and the muscles on his throat dangle and tighten as he does.

"Calpurnia is there, and I want you to keep a check on someone we both know as well."

I crush my eyebrows together, nostrils flaring once. Runt keeps her yellow eyes lazily trailed at our discussion. Since no one tries to ram and let the dogs fight for them now, her ears only tilt whenever she hears voices, but just as her brother with the missing ear, she stays still.

"Tell her I grew sick of looking at you, tell her my father and Samson are at your neck, whatever suits you. She has been trying to control you your whole life. Work with it. It's easier than it looks." I speak from experience.

"And who is that other person you want me to make contact with?"

"Our dear friend Heron, of course," I grit my teeth into a hostile smile. "I would send your sister, but she isn't here, and she could never keep her infatuation for the girl in control."

He takes that in with a pale, concerned blink that lasts too long. "She doesn't trust me. Atara never said any nice things about me."

"Again with the trust, Loren. Heron doesn't have to trust you. You're still my safest bet." I blow out air in annoyance. Now Runt lifts the head and her ears turn from curious moving to alarmed. Her teeth glitter behind her chaps pulling back in the same sharp yellow as her eyes.

I reach one hand toward her.

She has been snapping at fingers and growled in alarm, guarding me. She is just as ready to hunt as I am.

With her ears flattening against the head, she lowers herself and gives into my hand commanding and reassuring her.

"She doesn't know any else of the Vipers I could spare. And she despises me."

Not that the feeling isn't mutual. She was a boring guest and her insults dug too deep.

I cross my legs under the table and move my toes. Back to my heels, not barefoot anymore.

"I want you to leave as fast as you can and settle with Calpurnia. And then you sneak up and get a good eye of what the Welle's are doing down there. Express concern. Act like your old blasé self, Heron hasn't seen you deflate. Sleep with her, threaten her, whatever suits the purpose. I don't care. And one last thing. When you're there. I want you to talk to someone. But you have to be quiet and careful about it. Can you do that?"

My secrecy makes him nervous. He shifts on his seat. "Who?"

My finger stabs the air. "You need to promise with your life you will not cross me or tell a soul, or I will cut you to pieces and feed you to the dogs. No matter where you hide."

Runt huffs, the other two wag their tails for a moment at the notion of being fed anything.

"I kneeled," he resigns, fully slumped together. "Who do I have to talk to?"

"It is about a red boy," I explain. For a moment, I feel too fragile unveiling that to him. He doesn't even ask, he makes no snide remark.

I almost propose to maul him again when he leaves, just so it seems that I really have grown tired of him.

In the end, I refrain from making my fingers dirty and breaking skin off my knuckles so shortly before having to walk into the home of a cold-blooded pack of mind readers.  
  



	15. Callous

_callous_

_-being hardened and thickened_

**_-_ ** _having calluses_

 _**-** _ _feeling no emotion_

 **_-_ ** _feeling or showing no sympathy for others_ **_:_ ** _hard-hearted_

* * *

 ** _O_** n one side of the Viper halls, animals scream and feet move through the hallways. On the other side, my mother already prepares for the usual nightly activities.

I catch a whiff of white clothes on every floor as I move down.

One is just the usual stilting, gaunt man that always finds his way to my mother's room, and the other is a worrisome procession of Skonos.  
I leave the dogs behind, scattering my upturned collar with bolt leaping spiders. In black and white, hair, equipped with strong pincers, they brandish and protect me, as always.  
And then the time is up, and I have to follow suit after the invitation.  
Like every house in West Archeon, this one is big.

It feels morbidly frigid in itself as if it is shivering.

When I step inside, one of my spiders drops down onto the floor and rushes over the side. It brings hasty distance between me and it.

My eyes burn, but I try to assess the silent room around me.

It reminds me of our house with the steep staircase I left behind in Summerton. The same absence of warmth in any preened pristine decor. Cold and untouched and without a trace of dust.

Whoever took care of this has decided the other one too.It is wrong I came alone.  
The uneasiness rests on my spine like Samson's long fingers. Heron said I was a Merandus. She is wrong, of course. But it would help now.

The spiders shiver and tremble with every breath I take in walking.  
Maven thought he did me a favor telling me his mother would show up. Right now, that feels like a threat more than simple knowledge, even if it helps to avoid surprises. There is literally nothing in my line of power I can do, little I know, and even less I can do to subvert anything when she chooses to talk to me.

If my teeth grind on each other even more, they'll make unpleasant crunching sounds.  
If my spine arches back even more, it will break again. I just try to be taller than I am. Like usual. But even more desperate.

My stomach turns and twists in bizarre knots again, eating itself, as much as I want to hide it, I'm sure it's a rather futile effort in a place filled with mind readers.

If I get any more nervous, I will puke over the carpet. I want to run away. My head can't wrap around the fact that I have returned unharmed only to step inside this nest of frosted death.  
So I just hold it together, for now, rubbing my sweaty palms on the back of my jacket before resting them at my sides. Even now, there are around four to five pairs of visible eyes watching me.

Fingers feeling after my critters, I take a long breath. The smaller spiders have long vanished in the cracks between the floorboards, sitting somewhere on the hinges of doors and in the sharp corners. As well lit as the house is, as light as the colors are, and as sterile and cold as everything feels, I doubt they will survive tonight if I leave them here. At least they are unpleasant to catch, venomous and fast. A few of the remaining crawl over my ear almost in reassurance, brown and black specks of eight-legged friends, settling in the cracks of my clothes and under my collar. They tickle my skin.

The biggest one, a bold jumping spider in black adorned with white dots and stripes along the abdomen and rear, slides over a curtain in the room I am in. The others are like armor on my shoulders and front. They move lazily. As any of the bigger specimens, they can jump and see better than the smaller kinds. The bold jumper on the curtain disappears above the trimmed, wound rod of the curtains.

For a moment, I forget where I am. I am just a spider, and being a spider is, as I have elaborated with multiple people, my preferred state of being.  
A spider has silk to coat a lair and food in. A spider doesn't get self-conscious. A spider hides or eats. A spider has cold blood.

The eyes of the bold jumper focus through the colored void of swirling air and moving forms. It stares down on the unmoving figure of myself, black from heels over pants and the black, upturned collar of my shirt and jacket.

And then the eyes that take in movement see the blurring blue form at the edge of the foyer, at the corner of my own vision, just slowly moving forward. If it wasn't the blond hair smoothed back from a sharp face or the blue ridiculous leather, it would be the stinging of the cologne that always haunts me when I linger in too close proximity to Samson.

My neck cracks when I snap around.

I am reminded of my panic attack in Harbor Bay, and I want to scream and run.  
Instead, I stand very, very still. It doesn't make me invisible, but it helps to ground my vision. He only creeps closer. I can feel him worming inside my brain, it hurts like shivering fins rubbing against my skin. We study each other in the lights raining in white snow down on us.

At least, that's almost funny, he looks horrible for his standards. Lassitude and debility from all the jumping back and forth, maybe, or maybe just because he didn't get enough sleep in the last week in between ruining other people's life.

"Did you lose your voice?" he asks, almost amused.

My body cramps together in the remainder of my bleeding pain and my emotional rawness. I don't feel as bloated, but I still feel the swing of it. It doesn't make me whiny, it is like someone has slapped me, and grey anger blinds me a second.

_I hope you die horribly and rot away on the side of a street like a roadkill, Samson Merandus._

That night in Harbor Bay won't be the status quo- I hate his presence too much to surrender. That is what fuels me. That is the reason I don't run now. My hate fuels me.

"I was already dusting off my veil," I snap at him, unpleasantly surprised to see him. Of course, when one is here, the other would be too. It's in his nature of bootlicking at her feet. What better opportunity than some dinner? "But you're still alive."

"And you're too early. Stop infesting the house with your vermin."

I lift my chin. _"Try_ to stop me."

He lifts his chin as well. "Maybe later when we're alone."

Maybe his family wouldn't appreciate more bruises and mental cuts at their dinner table. Maybe they won't care.

It's the four walls and the time spend alone you need to worry about. My sleepless nights and panicked fever days in the house with the crooked stairs can tell you about it.  
He offers me his right, mouth tugging at the corner into something that isn't a smile. It feels as cool as everything else in this house.

I take two steps and only begrudgingly take the arm. "I was anticipating that something took your head off your shoulders when you didn't greet me in my house."

"I've been more than useful, and that is all I will tell you."

It is like walking in the snow. Like every second in the house we shared, and even with shoes and armor this time, I feel like I freeze from the inside. My heart doesn't stop racing too fast in my body.

I'm stiff and rigid. Hostility seeps out of my pores. One pair of blue eyes watches my every mov. My arm squeezes too tightly as we walk, pressing it to his leather-clad side. I dig my nails into the fabric of his sleeve and hope it at least irritates him.

He's the second son of a cousin removed, and not even his older brother or father have the decency to show up, at least not on time. The house holds its breath. It is hushed and scared.

Once or twice, and very, very quietly, servants rustle over a hallway, and a few times I swear to my disillusioned brain that I hear a child talking, then a quiet sobbing cry, merely down the hallway. It doesn't serve my nervous form. I think about the dead children and their blood on my hand at the sun shooting and flinch involuntarily.

My spiders creep over the wall and catch the sound of the slow shrieking pitch in all abstract horror.

Children live in this mansion. At least one of them is very small, probably on the cusp of becoming a monster with the ability to mind read and terrorize others in their whim.

_Whisper brood._

A stream of hostile air leaves my body.

I dislike children in general. I despise the idea of this one even more. This thing that it represents, and the returning fear that I carry with me since the moment I married him.

Calpurnia told me I would be the mother of a terrifying litter of whispers one day.

Samson doesn't even need to read my thoughts on that one, he makes a sound that could be a laugh if it didn't sound like he was choking. I try to blink it off and sneer at him.

He only leads me through the house, ignoring my nails out for his blood. One more time I feel and hear the child speaking somewhere down the hallway. The voice quakes this time, more defiant, but still not discernable. Maybe a boy, but I don't bet on it. When I let go of his arm, he doesn't even look at me. He only leads the way further into the guts of the house and opens a door. If I was to creep into another room though, I know, he would stop me. He didn't take my arm to be friendly. He seizes me.

"Your parents couldn't be bothered? Your father invited me, after all."

He takes that the same as my previous insults and questions.

"I didn't think you were eager to spend time with my family."

"If I get a formal invitation I expect a certain degree of etiquette," I counter, stepping in beside him.

A dining room, clearly, but not as huge or as official as the one in the summer residence I spent the last months in. And not as small as the dining room that always stayed unused in the house with the steep staircase. The table isn't as old as the one in the Viper mansion, and the wood or the floor do not carry the small hints provided by the four-legged inhabitants about their existence. No scratch marks, no hair, no smell, not even a sound beyond the silent steps running through the house. The only mark is the man that sits right to the end of the table. A bruise as blue and blooming as the ones I hide under my jacket.

Samson's father looks a lot like him. The same skeletal , slim frame in sharp edges, if a little less looming and lean. A little grey on the roots of his blond hair, not as much visible as my father in the black, not as wrinkled around the corner of the eyes. He is smoother skinned, but still less stoic, pragmatic, or elegant than most of the older men in my life.

He looks less pretentious in his choice of clothing though, with less leather and more of a simple but well-fitted suit, and a thin, straight mustache where his son is always clean shaven.

"And you would be right to do so," he stands up very slowly, and I feel like I am the red blooded victim tonight. I get encircled by a dangerous pack. "Which is why I asked your husband to fetch you."

"That makes sense," I acknowledge. "So thoughtful of you."

He doesn't smile. He just inspects my scars. If he would put a hand on my chin and ask me to look at my teeth , he would be as obvious. "You look hardened since the last time I saw you at the wedding."

"I have changed since then. We all have."

Still no smile, only the pathological edge of an unmoved colorless upper lip and a quivering pencil-thin mustache above, almost as pale as the skin it fills. Then he sits down again.

I was sure Samson would keep ignoring me. He hasn't been polite beneath the surface in private moments. He is a man that snaps doors shut and invades spaces I occupy, not to ask or accept. In the presence of his father, he has found his manners again. Maybe it is just to control me. He pulls out the chair on the opposite side of his father. Not the seat at the front, that is reserved for the guest of honor.

"Where is the rest of the dear family?" I don't dare to ask for Elara Merandus, cop out for Samson's mother instead. Maybe she won't show up and Maven has fed me another lie to make me scared. If that is the case, I probably will make the spider bite him the next time he lifts it out of the glass.

Samson sits down next to me after I have reluctantly sunken into the chair.

He answers the question with a small wrinkle of his nose. "My family isn't as lazy as all your Vipers, even if it is only half as big. And at least my mother doesn't have the mental capacity of a jellyfish."

A snort escapes me before I can stop it. "I wouldn't dare to disagree with you, for once in my life."

Not that it answers my question. His father answers me instead.

"She is busy with our grandchildren tonight. There was an accident. Samson is right, it's no secret we aren't as big as a house as the Iral's or Samos'."

The topic is sore, it rustles over the ground like a snake in the brushes.

Just as before, I feel disgusted, but this time it is a thing between Samson and his father. My husband looks like I slapped him again, but less composed. 

I stare at the wine glass in front of me intently. Then I just grab it and drink as much as I can without choking. It burns down my throat. I haven't eaten today, and I know I will be drunk in no time if I am not careful.

Right now, wedged between the silent eyes that speak a million words of contempt.

_We're degraded weak branched cousins and second sons. I am a widow, he never married in the first place. Probably because no one wanted to lose a daughter to Merandus and to a man with a bloody streak in an arena._

Maybe Calpurnia wasn't the only one nagging at me for not being yet pregnant. Carrying legacy and populate and infest the world with more of them must be in the interest of every whisper. The fact that Samson is as old as he is without a child must have been the nail in the coffin between them.

My heart shrivels together.

I push my chair a bit further away. It scrapes over the carpet and leaves a dirty dent. I'm glad we have at least a wall of glass and porcelain and alcohol between us.

For a moment I want to take the glasses and throw them at both of them, at the wall, and my hands shake before I curl them into fists.

The spiders in the hallway shuffle below a corner. I tug at them and feel vibrations again, more movement.

I sit with my back to the door, but I don't need to look behind me to realize when it opens and the other -self-invited- dinner guest steps in.

When the dogs see me and my father, their ears tilt forwards and they jump up to wait for some command. The same shift rustles over Samson now. He leans forward the door first when she steps in, and then he even stands up to greet her. His father does the same, but less scrambling.

Samson had some admiration left for her in his mind, I am unsurprised by the courteous greeting. Sometimes he proves he isn't a completely uneducated fool when it comes to manners, he must have had teachers like all of us. He shows it tonight.

I only turn half, in some twisted bow and nod as soon as her eyes brush over me.

She looks almost bleak in dark colors and minimal jewelry. We even share the same knot at the back of our head, even if her hair isn't surely half as hard to rip into a form and much brighter in pallid blonde.

"From face to face, privately, it has been a while."

She sits down deliberately slow, and her hand on the chair flexes like cat claws.

I swallow and grind my teeth together again. Samson looks almost smug now, chin high up. Less disgruntled.

I am so uncomfortable I want to shed my skin.

"I'm very glad you could join," Samson's father answers.

I am wedged in with two mind readers, one brutal and one even more deadly. I am having a strangled conversation with the Queen, after a coup I aided carrying out.

My heart races too fast again, pulse a nervous flutter, and my stomach coils so aggressively. By now, it feels like I am alone in my bedroom again awaiting the nightly attacks.

This evening is a crystalline nightmare.

 _Keep yourself together, Daliah Viper,_ a voice of reason tells me. The voice sounds incredibly closely to Larentias, like some backhanded slap of a warning, and I appreciate that.

_Sit straight, breathe in, stop being a scared idiot._

And I do sit up, and I do try to stop looking like a strangled rabbit in the mouth of a wolf.

Their faces blur a second when I blink, and I feel them preying and scratching at my mental frame.

They know I want to believe I was taught well.

It's strange. I can see them talk. But they only exchange pleasantries, short phrases about traveling or the last days. And I can see in their shards of eyes and glass eating smiles that they say something else to one another. Behind it, in their heads, a shadow of a conversation unavailable even for spies with spiders.

The minutes go by like that.

None of us even has touched a piece of silverware on the table. We all occasionally grip a glass with force or nonchalance, but not even that gets into the true depth of alcohol and intoxication.

We all just sip and sneer and smile.

After a while, Samson's father disappears, and I am left with the rotten ones that terrorize and blackmail me for weeks now.

"I think Lady Viper feels left out." Elara turns her attention back to me. The way she holds herself reeks of superiority. Even without a crown on her head. Every inch of her is just like her son for a moment, and I know him very well from all the times he has talked to a spider in the middle of the night now. It's eerie overlapping imagery of long fingers, slender frames, and blue eyes. "Humor us."

And if anyone has ever said that with the least intention to get humored by me, it is Elara Merandus. They stare at me as if I will just take off my shoes and start to dance on the table.

My hands are fists again on the edge of my armrest.

Samson's long fingers clench around my fist and cage me, press me together too tightly. Elara is still waiting. I rip my hand out of the grasp.

"If you want to see a joke, you can walk around in Whitefire and watch the good lords and ladies rip into each other. I don't think that's the reason we are here."

By now, the feeling of something staggering, roaming in accurate movements through my brain is painfully obvious. It doesn't hurt me like my husband. It is more unpleasant.

Elara Merandus huffs.

"You're here because you were invited," she clarifies. "As a guest in your new family's home, you should reciprocate the manners and know your place."

Samson smiles at that, he doesn't move, eyes still trailing over both of us. I don't like the notion of that.

I remember how Larentia told me in prison I would be dead if I didn't get myself together. The memory carries me through the task to form words in my head. I buckled and complied, conformed and bowed to everyone for strategic matters. I still have to bend now, even just a little bit. I am far from a coward. But she is right. I can't barge in this situation. _Careful now._

My mouth seems to be so dry that it takes awfully long and sounds drawn out.

"Your son gave me a position, after...all those incidents."

I mean balls and assassinations.

I mean a coup and a murder.

"You know I was motivated by Ellyn Macanthos dying. You delivered. I kept my tongue," I stick my chin out, even though it probably makes me look like an angry child right now. "Samson over here threatens me. But there is no reason to. And if you think otherwise, tell that to your son."

"Much more daring than I anticipated," she comments. Samson chews on the words waiting for her to snap her fingers. Really just like my dogs. "Not that it helps you. You're not very successful in his employment."

I take a grounding, long breath, fill my lungs with sharp, almost minty air. "No one is. Right now I foremost want the lightning girl's brother and the red named Diana Farley caught and executed, painfully, if possible. A personal matter more than anything else."

They escaped me. Her. Everyone.

Her. She is the patient mastermind. She whispers words to her son.

She has been constantly waiting for the right moment to seize control over the whole system.

This woman is terrifying. But she is smart. Brilliant.

And I am not lying- if I was, she would know. She is inside my head.

For a long breath, she only stares at me. Her eyes dissect me to pieces of flesh and panic rises again in my blood. I can feel her moving through the images of Harbor Bay, the anger in the black plague, the crack of my skull, my cousin carrying me away in fear.

I want to scream. I just stay silent, digging my nails deep into my palms.

When it stops, I have started to draw blood from my own hands.

For another moment she sips at her glass, hands clawed delicately around the glass, somewhere in her own head that no one dares to invade. "Maven and I discussed you and your antics, when you came back, and when you started snooping around. Your acquisition was a tad rushed. But we both agreed if you were amicable to him, you'd be easier to handle. So I leave it to him to handle you and your dogs."

I wouldn't call us amicable, at all, but regarding the fact that I was very thankful and owing after Samson terrorized me, I can see how that was a good idea.

Maven guided me through breathing during a panic attack, waiting patiently for me to recover.

The memory is even more bitter now. Smeared with the clear intention of manipulation more than ever. His insinuations were always and only for him and his mother. I never doubted that.

I take a breath. If Elara sneered, she would at least give me a hint of hostility. Her cold nothingness and the thin wave of amusement don't tell me anything.

She leans back in the chair.

I lower my eyes.

"We still have a deal then," I mutter. I tiptoe on the ledge into a safe death.

"That we do," she notes.

"I'm not the only Viper that has a deal with you."

Something in my words amuses her, to a degree that makes the razor-sharp eyes and the glass splintering smile appear again. "Your father was a dying, desperate man. He wanted to believe he has a legacy, with you, and beyond that. That makes things easier negotiating."

There is that word again. Dying. Sick. Tired and old.

My nostrils soak in air, I can feel the sneer on my face spread again. "What did you do to him?"

"Why would I do anything to him? He has been handy the last few years. A crafty man, and not stupid at all." She leans on her hand, tilting her body slowly forward. The light spills around her, and she looks pale and bright, just like the same blurry vision of my husband, a looming threat ready to break me. "Samson, what did you tell your wife?"

A colorless, narrowed look grazes my throat and face from the other pair of blue eyes. "Nothing she didn't know already. That he killed the brother that would never cooperate. That he made her part of the deal. He sold her."

It would sting, but it is too true, too old of knowledge, and I am distracted. Dying, she says. She doesn't need to lie. It sounds genuine. The spiders scatter over my shoulders and runoff, emerging from buttonholes and sleeves into the dining room. A thick, black snake sits down on the plate before Samson.

Elara watches them with mild disinterest. "Did you tell her that she only got out of the cell because he insisted? He didn't have the authority to clear up your name after you were arrested. So I did that. And you became part of the contract. To ensure he wouldn't step down when he got the seat, but also because it was a shame Macanthos locked you in a house and wasted your talent."

Now it makes even more sense he never said anything about the bruises on my hands. A deal is a deal. We made our beds. Both. A marriage brokered with the insistence of freedom has to be enacted, even if it is the exact opposite of freedom.

I can't flee the house, I can't flee the marriage, I can't flee her.

I sit silently until she leaves. Even if it only means that I feel the layer of sandpaper rub over my mind turning in panicked and confused circles. The scratches in my palms stop bleeding, but I scratch them open again, and with my slow erupting cramps in my lower half, old and new blood in gray and silver bits keep me awake and in my body.

In the end, I am left with nothing but empty glasses and smug Samson. He stands beside the table, returned from the doorway, and stares at me.

By now, I am drunk. I can barely sit upright as the world turns. And I don't even care how dangerous it is with him beside me.

I try to blink the emotions away. I try to compress them into my soul, or whatever I have sitting inside my chest.

Wetness gathers inside my dry eyes. I press my eyelids together harder. Swimming blackness takes my vision away. It works for a moment.

The light feels dim now. It could very well be dark in the room, everything feels foggy and blurry to me.

"You're disgusting," Samson informs me in between a quiet servant taking dishes with him.

Bile and acid rises in my throat when I turn my upper body in the chair to stare at him.

He smiles a little.

For a moment my hand lingers over a leftover knife, and I imagine my bloodstained hand driving it into his throat.

I want to stab him _so_ badly. 

Just like the nights together, the Viper Pit incident, the threats made in the night after the attacks on the ruin, I can't stop, I need to poke and try to provoke him. Maybe I should know better by now, but I don't, and I am recklessly drunk and tired.

"Far from subtle, as always," I tell him, gravel in my throat. "You hate my dogs, but you're just the same. You are all like animals, all like my dogs. Maybe even worse. My dogs at least are not only hunters and killers."

For a moment, he almost seems puzzled by my honesty. Then the anger erupts over his eyebrows and flaring nostrils.

"Remember where you are," he notes, voice sharp.

"I've never been more aware of my whereabouts, and you had to be so polite tonight too," I snort. "I see you, whisper. I see you."

I go through the evening, that I don't put it under the lens of hostility for once. But just a mirror. He can feel it rummaging through my dizzy mind. That he makes me laugh now. I don't have to say the words. I still do. Just to taste them.

"All your life, you never were the _best_ for your family. No matter what you did. You want everything so badly. And you want to be seen and rewarded by someone you admire. Someone smarter. Someone more powerful. If only she could see what you can do...and you are trying so hard. You do everything she wants."

Wouldn't I know all about it? The similarities are _disconcerting._

"And there comes family and tells you to hurry up and produce a child for the sake of carrying on the name. Because marrying me and keeping me under your thumb is not enough for them. Nothing is ever enough, isn't it?"

"We are not the same," he presses out between his teeth. When he was angry before, or smug, or even just frustrated, this time, it is the same, sharp sting of hurt pride or a cracked ego that I could witness before. My husband has a few buttons to press, not that many. He is predictable in his patterns. If I wasn't boldly blacked out drunk I would implode with fear. 

"No, we're not," I say, swaying upwards."For once, whatever you think about owning me. I have a title and a name. I didn't even get to toast on it. That chair I sat in, that you won'tever sit in again, yes?"

The muscles in his body coil, I can see it in the closeness, and it feels like a snake tightening their muscles, ready to spring into action.

"A short moment, I almost pitied you. Then I remembered what you do to me and the world."

I get one step before his hands clasp around my throat. Clambering backward, I fall against the table, hands grasping at the fabric. The cloth rips off the table and a crystal glass shatters, liquid spilling over the ground.

Even though the drunk haze, now the panic kicks in, a horse leaping upward, jolting in the memory of a place nightmare. My dried out eyes water again, but I blink inside the light above me directly and wait for it to retreat.

At the same time, the stingers and venom prick my anger awake, and I've already stained in blood anyway, so I kick, fight, and struggle back to not end up on my back or on the ground.

He takes the weak attack with one twitching eye, hair falling into his face now in disheveled strands of ashy blond. His long fingers don't press down. He only holds me.

At the seams of the ceiling, a vapor of black bodies streams over the remaining lights. It flickers and breaks.

"If you were any less useful," he breathes down. "And the day will come. I'll be so happy to end it.

_That is what he is. Not the manners, not the silence. There is the violence. There is the butcher that bruised and tried to break my bones, and he always is awake, not even greatly concealed under his cold surface.  
_

I breathe heavily, waiting for him to press down and provoke me into action. My eyes water heavy this time. I want to puke, acid bile in my blood and starting up my guts , rising to my throat. The aggression pulses in my blood.

He unfurls above me, hands retreating, brushing off his fingers on his jackets as if I am dirt. I feel the pounding pain of ghostly fingers. But I haven't lost this round. He can't storm off. I poke and bite until the end. I'll never fold together.

The hissing , black cloud filled with manifold legs has half fled, half readied to leap if I make one more decision.

A few already creep over our feet. A shoe flattens them . With a terrifying scrunch their lives are lost.

"You're drunk and miserable," Samson says, because he always wants the last word. "I will escort you home to your dying father, your whoring mother and the rest of your useless family."

"Do what you want," I mutter. "But never forget- I have a house to lead. You don't."


	16. Assessment

_assessment_

_-an opinion on the nature, character, or quality of something_

_-the act of placing a value on the nature, character, or quality of something_

* * *

**_B_** reathing next to Samson is like breathing in powdered lead. It poisons my drunken brain. I am dizzy and as brittle as my heat strained hair. The memory of his fingers on my throat makes me want to vomit. I feel him, beside me, inside me, it makes no difference, the contamination always spreads, and he wasn't even the only person in mind tonight. My bloody palms can speak about it. The silvery grey blood is dried over the marks in my skin. 

None of us speaks on the way to the mansion, and none of us attempts to look at the other if we don't have to.

Instead, I stare at the blinking light of Archeon and wonder how many minds are asleep out there, red bodies in uneasy rest between labor. I wonder how many of us are out there patrolling the remaining bridges. I wonder how much of the city that doesn't really fall asleep from the sweeping headlights, the neverending noises, how much of it is in reach for a whisper to see. I recall flying over the rooftops, savory wings in smoke and the hidden parapets of the high walls and houses hemming the streets. I felt like a queen. Not that my husband has the capacity to feel anything but above all else. 

When I reach the foyer, I am ready to puke over the carpet, head spinning, eyes still dried out. 

It's too silent on our side, with the eventual breaking of music and still too loud noises the side of my mother produces. 

I am too tired to be angered or even annoyed by her. I reiterate the idea of sending Hadrien or Hector to throw her out. I should do that as fast as I can. Right now, I can't see a straight line, and that is dangerous on its own, especially with Samson still around. 

So I just stumble up the stairs. My feet are loud on the floor, followed by a slighter, less heavy footfall. Our shadows flicker over the wall for a moment when a headlight or lantern passes in the distance below the windows, then I can feel my safety line of shielding fangs and fur. 

Runt always snaps at people and dogs if she can, and they never liked him. Now, I can hear her snarl, a silvery shadow pressing beside me, stiff and rigid. One Ear follows up. They half perch, ready to jump him. Runt gives one bark when he moves, a warning, and snaps again.

In the half-light, they are deadly, gleaming white teeth and low, rumbling growls. They are so big they seem to reach over my childishly small form, heads high, pressing their ears to their heads. 

"You have escorted me," I conclude. "Feel free to leave."

"I'm still staying in the house," he says. "As long as I am here again. Your mutts can't change that."

He makes another step in the circle of our bodies, and Runt leaps a little forward. She is still the fastest, and she could bite his fingers off. Her teeth don't even nip, but the close call is enough to make his form retract. 

"I don't think they appreciate being called names in their home, Samson. Did you leave your manners at the dinner table?"

As if to help my point, One Ear draws his chaps back, tongue sticking out between a warning growl.

"The guest rooms are that way." I point down the hallway, as far away from me as I can.

To my surprise, or maybe because the dogs snarl and stay at my side, he doesn't come inside my room. I roll up between the covers beside the two dogs and hug them tightly, cuddling into the warmth and comfort of something that is both alive and revering me as their leader.

I still have nightmares, harsh landscapes of memories that break on my skin until I shake awake. My broken fingers grab the dogs so tight they wince and lick my face again.

* * *

No news from Loren, but I didn't expect that so fast. I rather have him approach the situation commendable. If he deserts me, I will do worse than break his nose and punch Calpurnia in the throat.

No news from Atara either. But I also don't expect anything else. Last time I saw her she said she never wanted to be like me. Now, look where we both are.

No news from my father. He is fast asleep with Battlescar guarding the doorway when I walk by. I let him sleep. I don't appreciate the waiting. But my head almost feels like it explodes this morning, even after a shower and a meager breakfast. 

Even the loose braid pulls at my scalp too tight, it hurts to blink. My whole body is a ruin of stiff muscles. The black scorpion that Larentia send me sits on my shoulder.

I find Hector and my guards circling around the lower story. The smaller one sways over a few crinkles on his patches of his uniform, as if to prevent something sticking to it that was just said. My stoneskin guard is much bulkier, but Hector stands so straight and sharp he could probably cut through his hardened skin with just his eyes or the displeased line of his mouth. He isn't only just displeased by whatever discussion they just had. 

"We have Arven's staying in the guest rooms and your mother's, as well as the whisper."

No surprise about Samson. Not even much surprise about white clad figures from the house of silence. One of them rivals my own husband in his way of acting like he owns the Viper mansion. Another one, though. I wonder which one. I have a strange feeling I know about it. About a girl with green eyes and a defiant stance.

"A lot of people," I just say, crossing my arms.

He looks back at the uniformed guard. A foreign body for a man that told me he cares about family now that we are together. "I was just making sure your newest security personal is on the same page as me."

My background check for them is still pending, so he might as well share a bit of the information with me. I cock my head to the side. "And are they?"

Hector shrugs. "This one here has a clean record, and he's a big fighter, I say you will make good use of that, the banshee behaves like a moody little girl, but knows boundaries beyond a snarky face. They're better than some others." 

"We'll see." 

The morning is filled with tedious meetings. First, Sonya hangs on my heels again. But she drifts away as soon as I notice her.

The next one to shake off are some obsolete henchmen send to make my life miserable. They somehow manage to not only make me laughable by refusing to sit down and simply brushing up on me in the hallway. As well as making themselves look laughable thinking they can bring me anything to negotiate over. I've been sitting in the meetings and have the papers, and I don't slow down as they gang up on me. 

They argue with me all the stride along the hallway. My voice is answering in a growling, hissing, and trying to not sound as miserable as I feel.

Last time I ran into her in this palace, Evangeline was half-awake because the explosion and commotion rumbled through the foundation of the city and our lives. 

She's fully awake this time, with interchanging spikes slung around her wrists, and her long hair in a low braid made of the same metal tint. 

Again, we have a moment of mimicry, taking stance, eyes and faces as little asleep or tired, and as always, she wins. One long strand of grey hair wisps along her cheek and her well-shaped eyebrows draw together before she tells the guards off in her usual way of brusque commands.

I take a moment, just a moment, even if I don't appreciate the waiting. Something inside her face tells me she knows about my mental state. Her eyes have easily found the scraping marks in my hands. That must be it. If her brother has spilled the truth about my breakdown in Harbor Bay, I'm in deep trouble.

* * *

I don't appreciate cooling my heels at all. And so while I wait, left hanging, I feel tempted to find my spider legs in Maven Calore's posession again. At this time of the day, though, he wouldn't be in his bedroom. It is barely afternoon. I am fairly sure that he's around. Maybe his mother is too. Even though I haven't seen her. Samson must be somewhere around too.

But a spider won't do right now. A spider would only be able to listen, and I don't want to listen. I want to end this day of waiting. Now that the formal dinner in the cold frozen nest of the whispers has passed, I want to hunt again. And I have questions no one has answered yet.

His study is almost as boringly empty as his bedroom. It is telling the story of nothing. It's a show of some colors and a few decorations that are leftovers from richer days, days of an older man, but nothing else catches my immediate attention now that I entered.

There are no offerings and gifts from Maven Calore anymore. He doesn't have tousled hair and frantic movements, like a sleepless child in a bed. He doesn't have the same silent authority over me as in Harbor Bay. At least the crown sits straight on his head, even though the crimson cape that bashed me in a face is burned, something alike it hangs over the armrest next to him.

After the appropriate second of etiquette, I sit down on the chair in front of him and cross my legs. The black bodies all around us swarm together and soak the wall in a small , black mass. Then they crawl towards me. 

"We're quite alone today," I answer, blinking. 

As alone as you can be in a place like this.

"There were names and details given to you, and intel, about this...about the New Bloods,"I try to get to the point. 

His eyes are still not as predictable moving as the other blue pairs that stalk me. But I learn more about him every day. "I'm not sharing everything with you. You'll have to wait until you get the next name."

"Do you have a list?" The question slips through before I can stop my curiosity.

He questions me back at the same rapid pace. "What if I do?" 

"Where would such a list come from? Who made it?"

I don't get an answer.

"Efficiently speaking," I restart the topic, spiders raking over my boot to crawl back to me. "If you want the red-blooded anomalies under lock and key or dead such as that boy in Harbor Bay, you should find personnel to arrest them."

"As in a secret unit to dispatch and hunt them?" Maven asks, a rhetoric suggestion more than anything, given how shrewd and unmoved he follows our discussion, still sitting on his chair. The light draws his form in umbra and coal over the flat surface of the table. No edged in borders of Norta like in the council room. Just a smooth table. 

I remember my father told me to be patient. I retorted that Iw as nothing but. I take a deep breath to elaborate on this negotiation. If I can survive his mother, I can survive him. And that makes me almost too safe. I take this conversation a step further.

"That girl from the residence and the one you send me to dispatch from the village both escaped. They probably joined the rebellion. Because we were too late. And you didn't get anything out of murdering the boy and shocking the girl. Your forces failed to arrest your brother."

"You mean you failed," he scoots back a bit in his seat, distancing himself from me. It isn't about me attacking him. We know I could maul him before I would get arrested and chopped on the block, or shot in the head. He distances himself because he thinks about something, it is turning in his head. All the while he doesn't want me in his space. As if I care.

"Your forces failed," I repeat. " Your hand held the interceptor device, and you gave orders to let them slip through. The rebels blew up the center on top of Ocean Hill. You were there, even if few people know it. We both do. You can blame me or Ptolemus, but you can't get rid of him, and you're missing a shot if you dispose of me now. The Queen assured me you and I were _amicable_." It burns in my throat to repeat her words.

He looses some of the distance in his face. Maybe because I strain whatever patience he has. 

"I won't give you that list, no matter how amicable we are. I'll never trust your intentions, and you know it."

I shrug. "If you don't feed me a whole meal, give me a treat at least."

"Everyone wants a treat, if you haven't noticed," his fingers clack over the flat table between us. Not impatient, almost pondering. They drum a beat of calculation. The silver bracelets on his wrists click together, and I almost expect a spark of flames. But unlike his brother, he doesn't blaze me with fire, he catches me cold with a proposition. "If I give you a title of vanity and make you head of a secret unit, is that enough to keep you part of the machinery? To keep you silent and satisfied?"

A title of vanity. One more. And do I love titles that don't discriminate me. Being a Lady is good. Being an heir is a position, but not a military used title. Ptolemus has rows of achievements, the stoneskins loved their titles. Secretaries, colonels, officers.

I deserve all of what they offer me. I am not Samson, I know this is a bait and switch game we play. I know it is dangerous, and I don't want to be too greedy. But sweetening the deal for me? 

I want to take that, as long as it is worth something.

"Do I get any resources?"

He doesn't think about that too long. "You can keep the two from Habor Bay. That's all. Use your own resources. You are the head of a noble house."

"Where do these-" What is the right word? Things? Anomalies? People? Reds? Traitors? "Where do you store them? Will you lock them away? Dispose of them? You can't murder them all and hang them from a statue. I have kennels and cages filled with animals to feed and I know it can be time consuming and money consuming to do so. Will you just sit them straight into one of the smaller prisons? Is there one with enough cells if the red-blooded ones fill as many lists as the silver courtiers you want to get rid of?"

"Keep hunting them, and keep to your Samos cousins, and I'm sure that question will be answered soon enough. Let's just say," He doesn't smile in triumph, but he doesn't look uncomfortable either. It looks more like his face relaxes and cramps together, an unpleasantry or inconvenience that I ask him that. "You are far from the first person asking these questions, any of them. Everything has been set in motion long before I bribed you. And it'll stay that way." 


	17. Suppress

_suppress_

_-to put down by authority or force: subdue_

_-to keep from public knowledge: such as to keep secret_

_-to stop or prohibit the publication or revelation of_

_-to exclude from consciousness **:** to keep from giving vent to_

_-to restrain from a usual course or action  
_

_-to inhibit the growth or development of_

_obsolete **:** to press down_

* * *

**_T_** he first five names are given to me in the next days, after a long session of more discussions in Whitefire. I prepare fast, I have waited in the wings already. Samson is still rummaging through the house, my mother is still throwing her luscious little evening parties, my father is still tired and looks the part. I can't wait to leave.

Since no one can snuff out the rebels, at least not yet, we don't make a plan based on that. We don't know where they will appear. Instead, we route and rewire our location and plans to necessity and structural ease.

I was the one preaching about efficiency. And so the plan is as followed: Retrieve the first two targets, ready them for transport, move on, and then escort the last one back to wherever. It will take me about a week with all the back and forth, and all the wiring up contacts in between.  
If you could draw a route in a thick black pen over a map, it would root in Archeon and move away, slowly crawling further. If the trend continues, I may just reach the outskirts of Delphie, or the air base Atara is stationed in. Wouldn't that be something, visiting my dear bird girl. All the while her brother is trying to catch and strangle her friend Heron and her family.

The nearest targets are siblings. They live in the outskirts of red villages just a few hours away from Archeon. The measures have thinned out the villages here too. Close to the remaining sources of power, closer to a big city, the silver mansions upstream, or the technological facility keeping reds in their proximity building our instruments, they have nowhere to go.

They don't have much cover to flee to. Even if my contact assures me that many have either tried to. Some starve away in their attempts to escape misery. Because no red, glorious rebellion has come to save them. The Scarlet Guard bombed, murdered and now they have vanished.  
I don't expect any of the rebels to come close to the center of their future demise. They can't pull bombs and fuses anymore in secret. The tunnels have been taken care of, and now faces are made known.

No. This is a test run. It's easy. Just as the vanity title, this is testing my loyalty. My endurance. They don't give me anything without being sure I am made of diamond glass. I made a proposal, now I need to prove myself.

I brought Runt and One Ear with me this time, as well as my guards and Hadrien. I could have come alone without a gun and no one would have hurt me. It isn't even a hunt. It's a hut, not like the one standing on Stilts in that village during the hunt with my cousins, but as miserable all the same.

We don't even kick down any doors today. The whole family stands lined up in their home.

Gun dangling at one side, metal cuffs on the other, I take a step inside the small space.

The red family is surrounded by us and the dogs, as well as my contact in the officer guiding us here. The officer is my age, a little bit older, and he watches us with pale submission and not much joy.

I look at the names on the crude paper, back at them. Their names and the birthdate and blood group are lined up in mechanical letters.

I came for new blood, for anomalies. For dangerous creatures that can shoot lightning and join rebellions. I came for people that share the ability to inflict pain. Just as the Barrows, throwing me over banisters and raining down sparks over the army.

The one named Wolliver in Harbor Bay was a teenage boy, hanging from a noose. The others that escaped were more dangerous.

These ones here, they are children.

The younger one is not even four. He has thin, dark hair, clogged together by sweat and dirt. When he sees my dogs, his hands cling to the ragged pant leg of his mother. Runt stands alert, ears up, panting. One Ear sits beside my leg, pressing his big paws and body against my boot. It looks too clean and gleaming polished surrounded by the dirt.

The older one is a girl with the delicate bones of someone underfed their whole life, pale and scared. Their freckled faces and colorless, grey eyes swimming in their faces stare at me.  
The longer the silence in the dirty, small house stretches, the more pressing it gets.

"Take the children to the transport," I tell my animosi cousin, Asher and the banshee, called Bryce. The officer to my right moves a step back.

Their mother stood very silent until now. When my guards move to grab her children, she shrieks forward. The toddler behind her legs pulls forward along.

Asher holds her tightly, twisting her arms. Her words are barely audible in a sobbing, high pitched scream, but they are pleading.

The toddler still stares at the dogs, then up to his mother. He barely starts crying when gloved Hadrien collects him. The air around him cracks a second. My dogs put their ears flat to their heads in the sudden stroke of heat. Hadrien swoops away from the crying mother, muttering something. The child looks at him with big eyes. Hadrien doesn't look back. He rarely meets eyes or shows emotions. Now, his dark leather gloved hands just cradle the dirty toddler in his arms and carry the kid away.

The dogs relax a little again.

Since my guards are both busy with the mother, I take on the girl myself. Just as her baby brother, she doesn't struggle at all.

Red children are bruised to stand still and avert their gaze. This small girl lets me wrap my hands around her wrists to bind her.

Skin on skin, I feel her beating heart, the pulse that rushes under the salt-crusted, wet skin. But it is not her plain fear or her being so alive. As soon as she touches me, something flashes between us. I know the connection of a whisper breaking into my brain. It isn't exactly the same, but similar enough for me to breathe in strangled, with blurred fear infecting my system.

The next moment she looks at me, I see her eyes. And they look right into my soul, into whatever I have done. They see every corpse, and they see every pain I ever inflicted and had to endure.

To me, she is a freakish genetic anomaly. But I can see in her face. She sees my scarred face and hard eyes.

_To her, I am a monster. Inside and outside._

  
As fast as I can, I swish the cuffs around from my belt and snap them in place. Her wrists are so thin I need to tighten them.

Asher is done dealing with the red woman, and she is slumped over on the ground by now.

  
They get put in the back of a vehicle, up to be transported away to the place Maven has hinted me at, and we move on.

Up at the gravels and loose stones on the road, into the dust of a faded summer and swirling autumn. I rake my fingers over the back of my dog's heads, petting them, staring at the dust clouds.

"That went rather fast," Hadrien tells me. His eyes more distant than mine, especially without his glasses. He doesn't look at my face. "We will be able to take a pitstop at the outer residence of the Vipers as planned."

"You are always rotating in plans, are you?" I ask him, crossing my arms.

He flails his hands a moment, obviously trying to match my body language but failing. "I like being on time. I like having schedules."

"Right, then you will like that we are on time," I confirm. "We take a night's rest, then move on by air."

He only nods.

"What did you tell the kid?" I ask, voice low. "That child could have unleashed something deadly."

"Usually," my animosi cousin answers, detached. "I would have said it could be much worse. But my parents told me to understand what other people are worried about. And this child asked for his mother. So I told him that he'll be with his mother again soon. I hope that was not too cruel? It seemed to calm him down."

I blink against the unwelcome feeling in my stomach and my dry eyes welling up in something I can't explain.

_The mother will be executed, probably. And a toddler can't survive in prison on his own very long._

Taking a breath, I remind myself that I am indomitable. There is nothing to change it. This is my diamond heart test. I wanted this. At least I didn't hurt them at their arrest. Whatever the rest of the officers do is not my business anymore.

I stare at the river while we travel on, looking into both directions. Where we came from, where we passed.

If you have the vision of a bird or know that they are there, you can see the smoke plumes from the factories, miles, and miles away, hours and hours, as we passed it traveling by ship back to Archeon from the summer residence. They are only guarded by fences, commandos, and the trees in the water that filter the pollution. If you guess the other way, you can almost sense Archeon tensing, clenching in lights.

We move away from both.

The house stands build seclusive, even more so than the houses in West Archeon. It has a wider berth, more space for animals, not just a small backyard, but it shares the same metal fences surrounding the grass. And it is smaller than the mansion. One nervous red servants rustles on the outskirts of the gates, and a our vehicle is not the only one that has left rims and traces on the roads.

I thought we would be alone here. But we are not. I'm greeted with a bustling of animals. Then, a moth flutters over my face, cotton soft antennae tickling my ear. The dogs pant at my legs again.

A few guards patrol in the distance. But besides black, I only make out one silver-haired head from a magnetron guard, and my heart stops. My palms start to sweat. One Ear beside me whines low in confusion. Runt tilts her head.

"Who's here?" Hadrien asks. Asher and Bryce both have their hands on their guns. I leave mine strapped. "Who did you tell you would pause here?"

"Only Hector," I whistle low. "But I have a suspicion your loyalist father shared the information with someone else."

The rapid noses move on the ground. My dogs shift past the nervous servant. The dogs catch the whiff of something soft, a perfume. It tickles my nose just like the moth did my ear.

I hurry through bare bone walls, only decorated with a few meager images of animals and one small green stroke for our family.

Like a Queen in her own kingdom, Larentia has made herself some space in the living room of the house. She sits poised, clearly waiting. I look shabby against her dark dress and her firm fitted, cast on dress billowing slowly down her waist. 

Hadrien stops behind me, right next to one of my dogs.

"Leave us alone," she demands, chin up. Her face turns to the group behind me. Beside me, Runt stops in her agitated tracks, pushing her tail between her legs before snarling low.

I stare at my mother, sister, idol.

And even if a part of me is starstruck, delighted, another part of me is tired and still frightful. Still burning with apathetic shame I can't push away.

Her green eyes soak through my facade.

"You could at least greet me," she says, standing up. And even though we are the same height, she is bigger than me in every regard.

"I apologize, Larentia, always a pleasure to see you," I finally find my form and look back at Hadrien. "Take the dogs and wait upstairs, or outside."

They close the door behind me, and it falls heavy.

"What are you doing here?" I ask. I realize now that her eyes don't leave my face alone that it is the first time she sees the scars on my jaw and cheek.

"Don't be surprised, it's a small window to discuss things."

After the whispers and Samson have been left behind in Archeon, I really shouldn't be surprised. It is indeed a very small window, but smart, she always keeps her distance to the fires she can't control.

"What can I do for you?" I ask. In truth, I want to ask something else, something much more childish.

_Did I do something wrong?_

To which the answer would be a disturbed yes, because I am walking on the edge of everything.

I shake that thought off.

She walks two steps towards me, straight and without losing eye contact.

"Letters are good enough in the long run, but encrypting your animal analogies gets cumbersome, and it doesn't leave room for details," she explains. "How about you tell me the truth about the last weeks?"


	18. Deify

_deify_

_-to love or admire too much_

_-to glorify as of supreme worth_

* * *

_**L**_ ying to Larentia feels like I cut off the tail of a lizard. It wiggles and moves helpless, devoid of any function until it dies off and lies too still.

I cannot tell her about my deal with Maven. I cannot tell her I knew about the rebels at the sun shooting. I cannot tell her I knew about the lightning girl. I cannot tell her what the whispers want or do. I cannot speak about the death of my uncle or that my father waited so patiently to do it.

Too many words left to be unspoken.

Instead I tell her a pitiful truth first.

"I tried to gain some insight in my marriage, but I can only tell you what everyone knows about Samson. He is a cruel brute that tried to break me a few times. And now he uses my incompetent mother to gain access to every room in the house and wants to know every secret. She keeps distasteful parties and company too."

Larentia makes a displeased sound. Showing fangs, her white teeth blink through her lips a second. She looks back out. I follow her eyes into the grass littered with red flowers behind the house. The cups are delicate, more like weeds than actual petals, and their intense, spindling bodies reflect the light in hypnotic patterns. They remind me of spider legs, growing in colonies and running wild over cobwebs.

"Your mother never knew when to keep her legs or her mouth shut. I will take care of her. It is about time someone does."

"I'd be eternally grateful," I state and bow. I don't dare to pull a chair over. I can't turn my back. I am almost paralyzed. "You know my father is unwell. It keeps getting worse."

A nod. I feel how we draw everything that flutters and crawls into the room. The spiders, ants, moths. Everything gravitates towards me and her.

"I had a bad run-in with Queen Elara at dinner with my in-laws but I could convince her that I am utmostly interested in turning the rebels in. I mostly negotiate with her son. I wouldn't say Maven Calore likes me. But he likes to use me." He surely likes to unload on my poor spider whatever he feels like revealing.

"I offered myself up for arrests and special tasks regarding rebels and...and-" I flinch away from stating it. "Anomalies."

"New Bloods," Larentia corrects me. "Red rats." And of course, she knows that. She knows what they are.

Unfazed, she turns from the flowers in a cutting, but graceful motion. You can see where Evangeline has inherited it from. She sits down again. "And now?"

I draw my shoulders back. "The first arrests by myself were made today. I will reroute through Norta for a few more stops."

I cannot tell her that the children all weigh heavy on my consciousness, more so than the guards I killed, or even Ellyn and defusing Ara from her position, everyone I condemned. I remember myself slipping on silver blood of four-year-old twins and how I blamed Barrow for murdering our children. And then the muddy eyes of my red boy mix in.

I was taught indifference. Why do I feel so bad? This is not optimal. This is not how it should be. I am doing my job. I do what I have to. She can't save me. I am on my side and my side alone.

"They were children," I still tell her.

For a second, I am a _stupid,_ lonely child myself again. I shrink under Larentia's eyes, wither away and try to reform. Her mouth coils a little, her neck stretches. She looks down on me, even if we are on the same level. She wagers about the thoughts in my brain.

The swirl of insects is so tight now it could be a maelstrom of my silent panic. It twitches and runs around us up the ceiling, just like it did in the Merandus' mansion. The moths flutter around and sink around her chair. My legs are still shaking. I pretend to lean down. In truth I don't squat in balance. I fall and kneel. My hands try to look inconspicuous picking one of the bigger ones up. I hold the black butterfly of the night softly. I cup it gently and try not to look at her.

"They were children," I repeat. "The first arrests. There is another family on the list. I am still uncertain where they bring them. No one yet has told me the location of the prison."

"A secret facility is called that because it is secret. Use your head."

"You know about it?" I perk my head, still cupping a moth. Do you know their location?"

"Who do you think helped to build a prison that's well hidden and extensively equipped? Where does the money come from? The guards?"

There are probably few things that ever go below Volo or any of the people licking at his boot, especially when it comes to money, and I should have known that my extended family was involved. There are few things that go above Larentia.

I swallow. "So Ptolemus and Evangeline..."

"Ptolemus will be there by the end of the week with you. Stand up." I expect her foot to kick me for a moment. She only shifts, one foot in a sharp heel cutting the air, drawing a circle. It makes her skirt rustle a little bit. "Stop being pathetic. What did I teach you?"

My tongue talks with mechanical memory. I look up. "Everything is expendable except family."

She nods once. "And this summer, what did I tell you to be?"

I stare at her foot when I answer. "A scorpion, Larentia."

"A scorpion doesn't winge for something below its status."

I choke on a breath. Larentia shifts again. Her heels hammer on the ground like nails in a coffin.

"Get up," she repeats, sharp this time. "And live with the decision you have made. You always wanted to lead, now you do, and you will not get soft. I need you to retain your status."

I stand up and smooth over my jacket, then move closer to her chair.

She is right. I made the decision to lead. I proposed the offer. I gave them away in order. And not every New Blood will be a child. Some of them are hazards. And some could be deadly weapons. Just the same as the lightning girl. And her jumping brother. Either way, giving them resources would be impossible. What is the alternative? There is none anyway. I rather want to know about the secretive circulations about the anomalies and whatever is happening to this sneaky little red-blooded pack of rats.

When I hunted a red rebel in tunnels below the fundaments of Archeon, I had it right.

_Age doesn't matter. Not in this. Not in violence and wrath. Even our children get murdered, their children get murdered, and we all have grown up as soon as we emerged and got thrown into the wild world with all the rules. Innocence is lost and should be purged._

I catch my sister, mother, cousin studying my scars again.

"Do you like them?" I ask her. I didn't foresee that her fingers coil forward like the diamond-shaped head of our namesake, the backside of a ring presses cooly in my skin as she grabs upward to hold my face. She inspects the scattered jawline of scars and littered cheek, up to my lip that is split.

"Beauty was never a defining feature of you. You never cared for it." It doesn't even sound brutal. Her hand is almost soft. Her eyes are still burning. "Is it an insult to your husband or a reminder not to fall like your former family in law?"

I cringe under her touch. The sheer mention of Ellyn in my reflection makes me startled. How does she know?

"I thought it would make me more intimidating," I mutter. "Fierce, maybe? And I kept it to not forget that they almost killed me."

"Scars won't get you the respect you want. Not if you earn them by defeat." Her fingers let go of my chin. I snap back into position and straighten even more with her next words. "Stop slouching. Stand proud."

"Are you-" My voice shakes a little uncertain. I clear my throat, heavily. "Are _you_ proud of _me_?"

"You've come very far from a widow to an heir in one month." She chooses the words with the same delicacy as a hand picks up a crystal glass. They are underlined with something careful. But to me, they are precious. "Don't fail your intended purpose and stay loyal, little bug. "

* * *

The last one is only one name to take into arrest. I have almost finished the task. I haven't faltered, I don't winge. This is the last one on my small errand list. The first run. The test done.

It is one name on my list to arrest. When I arrive though, the house is empty and the city is bustling with the crawling of a few too many guards. My contact is nervous. I soon find out that I am far from the only prominent person that is crossing by.

I have orders to retrieve a man in his better years this time, judging by the date etched beside the name.

It's a family on the run.

Runt and One Ear sniff at the ground and find the trace easily. They are sharp and angry, with their fur standing up and their teeth showing. They were trained for red blood, and now they chase it again.

My guards and I follow the small, narrow street. The houses are in better shape than the huts and miserable buildings in the villages. They are still smaller than most silver homes in this part, even the ones that are not nobility. And they are marked where the measures and every other law have to take marks and signs.

As we chase through the alleyway with our weapons drawn, something moves behind me, and I smell the two shapes.

Runt takes an opportunity to leap into the body to my right, but the one to my left moves fast. Way too fast. It's a fast, leaping motion. A jump. It is not red. It could be silver, but the smell betrays them.

I can't let him escape. But he is too fast. I may never catch him. So far, every target has been docile. Not one has tried to flee.

I try to aim for a leg and shoot. I can't line up a perfect shot. My bullet hits only a wall, leaving one big wound in the brick.

One Ear takes the chance and runs. But even a dog's legs can only bring him so far, and he is so, so fast.

The sound is piercing my ears in needles and tendrils. The crunching of metal, bending, and breaking. It sings in a cacophony of pain as it flies loose, a sirring like an arrow, or a bullet, and then it buries inside flesh with a wet thud. The body of the anomaly drops around fifty feet away. It hits the ground, from a mid-air leap. The man drops like a bird shot out of a tree in the courtyard of a mansion. A long metal piece sticks out of one side of his head. A wet sack with a binder around the arm to show the red status. That was a lie. Not red. Not with that ability.

I don't look at it. I don't look at the corpse. I only watch Ptolemus' hand retreating behind me in a flicker. Larentia told me I would be with her son in less than a week. And her words are the truth. He is pale in the lack of sunshine. I wager I look the same. We are bled out of color that drips in crimson over the stone.

One Ear has his head lowered and sniffs to where the red puddle spreads on the street. His tongue flicks out of his panting mouth and licks once. I pull him back with a worldless whistle and he whines and trots back to me.

Runt has started to drag the other one still alive over the paved way.

After a sharp comment in my guard's direction, I turn. I run towards the other end of the road because I don't want to see the corpse right now.

I turn away from my cousin to let him not see my shaking hand.

"Was killing my target necessary?"

"It is arrest or a kill at display," is all the answer. "Did you want to do it?"

"No." I still don't look at him while we walk and screams and orders pierce through the street behind me. "Why are you here?"

"We have the same destination."

"Ah."

* * *

A jet is waiting at the tiniest landing field.

Runt rolls together in my foot space, watchful. One Ear licks Ptolemus hand once and then huddles around him to sink against his legs. He leans against his boots and makes a low sound before closing his eyes. The grotesque tall bodies of the dogs squeeze in the space to fit.

My cousin's black eyes watch them with ease. He has nothing to fear from them. Even Runt wags her tail when she greeted him.

Just like the dogs, I feel tired. Sitting, traveling somewhere, is the only moment I ever get to rest my eyes. As we start to drift up, I rest my head against his shoulder. A thorn of metal pokes into my scarred cheek, but I don't care.

"I'm sorry," I mutter and shake a little up and down. My head sinks so deep against his shoulder the words are just a muffled sigh.

"For what?" He asks. His breath tickles me. It is an even breath. It is the breath of someone that has control over their thoughts and bodyparts.

I swim in the rattling sounds of the engine and don't answer anymore. I don't dream. I register faint sounds, the breathing of the dogs, the vibration of Ptolemus talking to someone. He puts an arm around me, and I take the comfort of this makeshift arrangement. Just like the night in Harbor Bay, he watches over me while I try to relax.

The jet shakes harder and harder for a while. It feels like we sink, but we don't stand still for long. And then the warmth of his shoulder is gone, but I am too drowsy to complain. After a while, I force my eyes open. The dogs at my feet growl low. It is an alarm that brings me to consciousness. The first thing I notice is the unfamiliar coat I am tugged in, a makeshift blanket of black, soft fabric. It's warmed up and big enough to surround me like some sort of a cocoon. Runt barks once, warning. I follow her yellow eyes.

To my right, on the other row of seats, a pair of waiting, blue eyes watches me. His black hair curls at the tip of his ears. No crown. Maven looks like he could also opt for a short nap in this transport, but knows better. So that is why we stopped. We picked up another passenger.

"Watching someone sleep is very unsettling," I say, voice coarse. Behind me, someone moves, guards, probably. So I raise my manners and keep up protocol. "Your Majesty."

My words only set loose the avalanche of the tiniest smile. "I didn't watch you very long, Lady Viper, don't worry. I am far from interested in that way at all."

Fingers nestling with my makeshift blanket, I loosen it to sit up. The seat beside me is empty. I whistle and Runt below me puts her head on the seat first, then her paws, and jumps. She sits straight and watches him cautiously. One Ear presses hard against my legs.

"Reassuring, because I am far from interested as well." My voice is almost lost in the brimming sounds the jet makes.

Even if I wasn't married and capable of love, he is barely an adult, the idea of it combined with the age discrepancy alone makes my toes curl.

I throw the jacket off now over the armrest. The dogs sniff interested at the dangling sleeves and wag their tails for a moment as they take the scent in.

"I assume you've joined on the way to the prison facility?" I inquire.

He says two words that make me curious. I have never heard them before. As Larentia said, a secret facility is supposed to be kept secret. "Corros Prison."


	19. Block

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo like five chapters until pov shift.

_-a compact usually solid piece of substantial material especially when worked or altered to serve a particular purpose  
_

_-a hollow rectangular building unit usually of artificial material  
_

_-psychology **:** interruption or cessation especially of train of thought by competing thoughts or psychological suppression_

_-a quantity, number, or section of things dealt with as a unit  
_

_\- a platform (from which property is sold at auction)_

* * *

**_T_** he silver wings of our transport sink slower in the afternoon air. This isn't a nightly trip, nor is it exceptionally secretive. The jet is too big for that, and my company readying themselves betrays the former secrecy now.

The dogs are perching right beyond my feet now that I have taken my seat and even put on a belt. A radio sings in static in front. Our pilot announces us- the arrival of the crown. Runt tilts her ears. I catch the announcement of it. _Fleet Prime._ Who thought I would ever be in a position to be announced as that, in the official company of the latest leader of our country?

He sits in his seat blank and cold, with whatever thoughts circle in his head that wears the crown now again. He doesn't look exceptionally regal to me, because all I see is the bartering boy that lied to everyone, including me. That crown on his head looks pretty, but it is a stolen heirloom. It is placative for power that was supposed to go to someone else. It is placative for the posters and the video feeds of his speeches. And I don't believe any of the lies. 

We are similar in that regard, to some degree. I was never supposed to be the leader of House Viper. Loren was raised to take the position. My father was patient just as Elara was. 

He catches my eyes. "Are you nervous, Lady Viper?"

I suppress a frown and grit my teeth instead. "Why would I be?"

He barely blinks. "You sat in a cell last year. Will it bring back bad memories?"

I laughed and fought and spit when I was arrested until I had to be restrained with an extra set of manacles. He doesn't need to know that if he doesn't already. "I am on the other side of the bars now."

"You are also responsible for some of those people sitting in those cells," he continues. "Your proposal for hunting New Bloods was eager."

I wonder for a moment, just a moment, and it is purely hypothetical, just as every murder fantasy for Samson and my savage wish to cut a king's hand off in Harbor Bay- if I sicced the dogs on him now, how long would it take everyone to react?

I look back, pry my eyes away from Maven's face.

Asher, Hadrien and Bryce are in the back, perched together with another pair of guards posted to assure that Maven brought, or maybe Ptolemus.

And would my cousin kill me with the same precision that killed the new blood earlier today? Would he ponder?

He has been awfully quiet, but I can't fault Ptolemus. Because as a Magnetron, he feels the whole weight of the metal and machinery that carries us all through the air. If I was in the belly of a whale, underwater, it would make me feel the same.

I feel the weight of my knives, my weapons, and look back at the dogs shaking in the slow descend from the sky. They sit up at my feet. Runt shows her teeth.

I would have to be fast. And I would die before we reach the prison facility.  
  
What a laughable thought. I value my existence too much, and I have no reason yet to attempt and murder him. Where would it leave Norta? Who would be fighting over the crown if the last of the Calore's is dead and gone? Who would take the seat? Would Elara enact her own sovereignty? She is still called a Queen, and she still sits behind her seventeen-year-old son. 

They would rip each other apart. More than they already do.

I chuckle out a breath, and next to me, Ptolemus looks over with the same quizzical expression he often carries when he watches me. As if he isn't sure I am not crazy. 

"It's not my face and voice projected through every speaker and every screen in Norta."

I stretch and sit up, try to calm myself.

Corros Prison is almost invisible from above. Even as I look out of the window, all I see is barren land, followed by the distant concrete that marks the landing site. The facility lies in a region that was deemed no man's land. Inaccessible, uninteresting, radiated. Nothing is waiting here. No lights search the sky. No towering buildings form watchtowers. 

The prison is a stretched out block of more concrete beside the landing site. It is a barren , grey building that fits the desolate landscape. In my monochrome world made of black uniforms and silver blood, it fits in perfectly. It still looks too small from the above.

This is a place where the condemned souls of this regimen are brought. This is a place that contains all the uncomfortable truths, that holds everybody that has dared to speak up or act against the ones in power. This is a place where traitors and defected red-blooded-new bloods put their heads to have nightmares. This is a place of total control. This is a place that keeps all our secrets under lock and key.

"Have you been here before?" I lean over to my cousin.

The jet shakes a little, and Ptolemus face flickers. "No. This is an inspection, Daliah."

I take in the information silently. An inspection and they send him. I don't judge him.

Larentia told me. I never thought my cousin was an innocent creature. He has been formed to be an executor. We are raised to fight. We were raised to serve, to protect, and we were raised to break. And to kill. 

In the end, maybe that is why I favor him so much. Because he is what I wanted to be if I was born a boy on another branch of the family.

I take another breath through my nose, keep my mouth closed shut. The transport lands with a last, rutting sigh. 

"Will I need the guards and the dogs?" I ask.

"No."

"You heard the order. Stay put until we return."

Asher stands drilled and straight in the back. Bryce sneers a little. "Yes, Lady Viper."

The procession moves out of the jet in row and order, Ptolemus flanking Maven. 

"Stay with the dogs," I motion to Hadrien. He only sits down again and pulls out his writing utensils, as if he isn't in the presence of superiors. 

"My father will want a report," he informs me, not looking at my face. "Yours too."

"Something that's not redacted maybe," I assure him, my head is somewhere else entirely. "About New Bloods, probably."

"Fine."

I stay in the back of the procession. The dogs twitch and whine low after me.

"-a little thing that is interesting," I can hear Hadrien's voice low as I leave the guts of the plane.

"Suddenly he talks," Bryce mocks louder.

"Just a question to discuss. Now that we have a moment and you have nothing better to do than stare at the ceiling." 

"I don't want to."

"Tell her to put the gun down, stoneskin."

Asher huffs. "Stare into your book again, Viper."

"If you give it a chance of 1 to 100 to mutate, that means a certain percentage of the population has the possible reoccurrence of unknown powers. Thousands of them, possibly. Although I only saw five so far, the youngest was a toddler, the oldest around fifty, and none of them shared necessarily even the same blood group as Lady Viper told me. There is no known correlation in history. So what causes the mutation and is there a certain reason it triggers powers?"

"Make him shut the fuck up, Asher."

Runt howls. One Ear joins in. The singing voices of the dogs form a symphony of dread in my ears when my feet step over the concrete. It is our fanfares and trumpets because a small line of soldiers expects us.

At the front row, one figure is clearly superior. Clean cut, dark-skinned Iral, a man with the eyes of a seasoned officer. I study the badges at his shoulder. 

I should have known that they were in this too. Nothing goes over the financial and military structure of Samos and Iral. The bunch of assembled family colors speaks for themselves. Eyes, nymphs, stoneskins, magnetrons. The usual guards and jailers. Much less than I thought. But if this is an inspection of a newly built facility, I shouldn't be surprised.

They click their heels in attendance and salute. I stare at the broad doors that lead into the concrete building. A fence behind me clinks in the winds that breeze over us at the landing site. The wind carries the howling of the dogs far away into the barren lands of nothingness. 

"Welcome. Your Highness, Lord Samos," Iral's eyes glider over to me. I don't wear any color on my black uniform, and for a moment the military sharpness in his face screams about a demand for me to identify myself. "I didn't expect anyone else, this is-"

"Someone with clearance, Captain," Ptolemus clarifies sharply. It screams about respect. I'm grateful. 

"Lady Viper is the one that brought in most of the prisoners this week," Maven adds, studying the eye of a camera that points at the landing site.

The Captain bows only half as low for me, but his eyes still watch me. "Lady Viper," he adds. "A pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise, Captain. Are you the warden of this prison facility?" I ask.

"I am."

The formalities are short-lived. The whole deal clearly has been scheduled and planned. 

"Let's discuss the rest inside," Maven states. 

The door doesn't just open. It is a Magnetron door. It takes a flicker of silver shards and the whole shuddering metal flutters open, a bravado as screeching and dreadful as the howling of the dogs.

"What is the status?"

The Captain leads the convoy inside. I stare at the blank hall inside the concrete. More cameras, four walls- Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing exceptional. "The technical problems reported have been fixed, the works on the first rows of the cells has been rectified, block A and C are fully functional. D is orderly but still in a process to be finished. All in all, the process of building is finished, Corros Prison stands at service. We only need to perfect the processes and whatever you deem necessary as improvement."

My ears peek up like the dogs at that information. He didn't just order, but he helped to build this prison, after certain designs. 

The Captains moves his hand and some of the guards scatter through the hall. Behind the next set of doors, the light is blinding. 

The concrete was grey. The uniforms are black. The halls here are white. Everything is bright, sterile, soaked in tiles. Easy to hose down and clean, easy to maintain as more doors on each site branch out. They are lettered and color-coded. One is silver. One in the front catches my eye because it is pure red.

My heart pumps blood fast through my system. I put my hands to fists at my sides to stop myself from moving my face. Neither my cousin nor Maven are as much as blinking. 

"The command center is this way," Iral proceeds to lead.

"Will we see a cell block?" I ask, and luckily my voice sounds stronger than my stomach feels. 

"We will have to walk one to acess control," Iral explains. "This way."

He has a key to unlock one of the colorcoded, locked doors. 

I peek into dim light and a flickering hole beneath the door. On either side of the fray, cells spread. They scream in colorless pain, made out of stone and metal.

"We need a magnetron to access the runways," he proceeds to explain to me. "The ramps and runways are built to get lost or reform under metal bending."

"Well," I mutter. "That is certainly out of my expertise."

His eyes wander off my scars back to my cousin. "Should I call over the guard or do you wish to lead, Lord Samos?"

No one gets called over. The first plates and bits rise up from below the abyss of dim grey light and nothingness. The hallway reminds me of the chasm I fell into.

"Everything has been prepared for Her Highness' arrival and stay in the facility," Iral explains to Maven as they walk behind Ptolemus. His radio chimes in on a frequence, voices talking. Status reports maybe. "The control center has been updated and we await more orders and charges to hold."

I look at the faces in the tiny spaces in the rows. My heart stops and my blood freezes, until it feels like I am made of the same white and grey stone that forms these cells. Silent stone, bars, manacles. And mangled, lifeless forms in rags that are broken and on the bottom of their cells cut off any source of daylight.


	20. Sink

_sink_

_-to go to the bottom_

_-to fall or drop to a lower place or level_

_-to soak or become absorbed_

_-to go downward in quality, state, or condition_

* * *

**_N_** ot even spiders like Corros. The barren landscape introduces a reduced abundance of them, due to the radiation that spread through the ground for so many years, from before anything linked to Norta even existed.

Inside, they are rare too. It must be because the walls are wet and rotten and because there is nothing to eat, not even for spiders. I sense a few small ones, but I can't see a web in any corner or grating ceiling as we pass.

Four rows of cells, half of them still empty. I don't see a small boy. But below me, the girl I arrested sits on the bare stone ground. She looks drained of color in the grey light. Her body shakes. Her lips are just as grey.

I step over the metal stairs, balancing over the fissure. When I look down at her, into this rift in the poisoned ground that has been built to capture and hold, my foot almost slips. I stumble a step beside my cousin and hold myself in balance, arms stretched as if I want to fly away.

The group pauses. My feet have produced too many sounds. Electric eyes from above and silver ones from around me stare at me. I have to cover my mistake. My neck and my shoulders hurt so much from grating my teeth and straightening my body.

"I recognize some of the faces," I explain. The girl in the cell doesn't move. A delicate doll in colorless rags. I feel light headed. It must be the air that hangs so stale here. "If this is the tract for the defected mutations, I assume there is one for blood traitors as well? And is tehre another room for them to be interrogated?"

The warden of the prison, Captain Iral, waits a moment, hands behind his back in an all-business stance, attending this tour of horror in the manner anyone taking their tasks professional would. His teeth are bleached white in contrast to the grey metal around us and the black starch uniforms.

"Cellblock G for silver prisoners, and it is one of the first we finished after being given order. Interrogation and other rooms for different usage exist as well, they were equipped first," he elaborates. "Do you have a personal interest, Lady Viper?"

"Yes, do you?" Maven looks at the cellblock around us, the screaming tiles, the deafening drip of water, the little light that the facility grants the prisoners. His eyes seem to reflect the little drops of life that die in shadows, a face that is as attractive as a smashed mirror to me.

I screamed about being removed. Ptolemus had to carry me back to my bed. Now he looks at me with barely muted interest. He doesn't say anything, but I know he will as soon as I speak again.

"Just curious," I lie through my teeth. "Captain, is there a chance I can inspect that tract as well? Since it is finished, and this one isn't. I don't think I will ever return, so it would be in my personal interest to see how you finished the building process with my own eyes."

Iral's pitchblack eyes wander over me, back to the slim frame with the crown and the one in silver sparks and spikes. Small nods and approving faces smooth over a ripple of tension I can sense in his strained nerves.

"That can be arranged," the Captain answers, placid again. "I will send two of the guards with you as soon as we reach the control room."

And with one more nod, I close up and the procession moves again, asking small questions, or just watching the cameras as they watch us. They don't care much for the crippled, exhausted bodies that lie and sit in the cells around us. And why would they? This is their doing as much as mine. Everyone in this prison knows their place. Be it behind the bars or in front of them.

Someone below us screams and yells when they see our feet pass. They get silenced fast, with a smash and a crack, and then there is only the sobbing of a tired, strained voice. 

* * *

Cellblock G is for traitors.

This is the place that I would end up in as soon as I make one wrong step. 

This is the place where I send some of the stoneskins that Samson didn't kill. This is the place where Elara sends her enemies. This is the place people that dislike Maven Calore, Blue Flame of Norta, go to starve and suffer. 

Every cell in G is occupied. 

I can't stop at any point as I pass the nighttime row of horror. If I stop, my legs might just stumble again. So I act as if I inspect the way the cells are built. I act as if I am interested, not scared to the point that my head feels dizzy. I don't feel myself since I started the arrests. Larentia bend me back into place for a while, but being in this prison and walking the ramps and catwalks squeezes me together all wrong. 

It must be the absence of light and even the absence of insects or other animals on the perimeter.

For a moment, I slow my steps and breathe in deep. Blood has dried on some of the metal parts that the magnetron pieces together. It is grey and old, small droplets of dried anguish. 

Beneath me, I see a familiar frame move at the edge of a cell. 

Ara Iral moves slow. She doesn't lie or sit. She stands vigilant and disciplined if a little hunched. Even when she looks as if she has been through torture, something about her is screaming about being too stubborn to fall.

I wonder what the Captain thinks about holding the former head of his family in this prison. But if he cares, he hasn't shown that. He seems more inclined to work for the Queen mother and her son than personal meddling with his own people. 

"Lower the catwalk," I tell the magnetron guard.

She looks at me. Then she looks back at the cell.

"You have no permission to talk to prisoners, Lady Viper," she informs me. "Especially not the ones with a higher-"

"Lower the catwalk. I came with Fleet Prime. What permissions do you think I have?" I hiss at her. 

She takes a breath, silver hair in a tight braid shaking. Then she lowers the catwalk. 

Closer up, at the bars and the wall that separate me from Ara, she looks bad. Blood is dried on her mess of silver threaded dark hair, and her skin has an unhealthy color to it.

"Surprise," I greet. I keep my back to the cameras. Just in case that Maven, Ptolemus, or anyone of interest is watching. "You're still alive. I should have known you would be here. It's the safest place to secure someone as valuable and as dangerous as you, the famous panther. Did they try to get your secrets already? There ought to be so many in a spy."

Her expression isn't angry. She looks me up and down silently with her sharp gaze, the wrinkles around her eyes move as she narrows them a little. They are black bolts of energy, and whatever they see in me, they take it in. Being caught in silent stone dims her improved body, it hasn't taken her smarts away.

"Finally made it to the top, if you are here as a guest and not as a prisoner," she deduces.

"You can say that," I agree. 

"Still you look like one of your dogs vomited over a carpet, Viper," she offers. No sympathy in her voice. It is broken to a gruff and strident crack, but still dangerous. This old woman is captured in silent stone and she still has more authority and stride than most people. This is laughable. I shouldn't be intimidated by her. A small part of me is though. "And not one of your handy little pets today. You're not here to interrogate me, or spy on me."

"The scars come from fighting rebels," I tell her, unwilling to deny or admit anything.

"Good for you." Her eyes sweep away to my guards on the perimeter, a few feet away. "Have you brought them in today? The lightning girl? The rebels? Is that why you are here? After a failed execution, I hear. After they smashed the legion in the ruins. After they disappeared too."

_Scars won't get you the respect you want. Not if you earn them by defeat._

I frown and grit my teeth. She makes a discordant, mocking sound. "Oh, don't think guards don't talk."

I feel so dizzy by now, I might just faint. "The plans have changed a little. Not that I need to tell you anything."

She doesn't have an answer for that. Almost like she has lost interest in me. 

"I was the one that planted the evidence," I tell her. "I was the one that distracted and hurt you every time you got too close. Maybe I am not a young girl like all the others in the end."

"You're a seed, a puppet, and not half as clever as you always wanted to be," Ara answers and turns away. From her backside, she is just a normal, older woman in dirty clothes. Her discolored, dark skinned limbs, are sucked off any strength in the silence of the blood infused stone. "As soon as they are done with you, you'll get the cell next to me. You're playing the game of slippery slopes, Viper, and you're not going to be balancing any longer."

Her words are mocking, and they are not lies. I have to control my jerking body and the angry impulse to smash myself against the bars of her cell. "We'll see," I sneer. "If you're still alive by then." 

No answer. Ara Iral just slowly sits down on the naked ground of her ice-cold cell and closes her eyes.

* * *

I return to the control center in time to find the fluttering flock moving on. With a few words, I excuse myself. The same magnetron guards that brought me to Ara's cell escort me outside. First, the doors slide open. Then, the front opens in the flicker of a metal bender, shards expanding and shrinking like an iris hit by the daylight.

A small blowing wind ruffles my hair, as always a few strands have escaped at this point. My hands are sweaty as I lean them on my knees and take a deep, deep breath. 

I don't know how long I stand on the landing platform, swimming concrete in my tunnel vision. I lose any concept of time for a while. 

"Daliah," a voice shrieks through the bubble of my immovable state. 

The wind has become louder. The fence beside the building shakes. A few clouds hang in front of the sun, with small spots of blue squeezing through.

"Daliah," the voice repeats. Then a hand grips my arm. I snap up and take a step back. 

The hand lets go immediately. I stare up into Ptolemus face. We are the only two people on the landing site. The air-jet is already humming in powered up engine sounds.

"Did you say something? I must've-" And I don't even know what I must have.

His voice is just a low, frustrated growl. "What is going on with you? What did you say to Ara Iral?"

"Nothing. And I don't know. I was just thinking about everything."

The growl turns into a lower-pitched mumble under the wind. "You're still scared to be replaced."

I could tell him that I don't have parents influential enough to protect me. I should tell him that Maven tried to murder him. 

Instead, I stand as tall as I can, which is tiny in comparison to him.

"We are going to win every fight," I tell myself, just as I tell him. My hands are barely healed from the marks I inflicted on them. My nails are clean but ripped at one edge of my index finger. His skin is warm and soft, smooth underneath them. I hold his face loosely. "You are doing so well. Look where you are. Look where we stand. We are not in those cells. We never will be. You are everything your family could hope for."

My words are like my mother's violin. They borrow tunes from other artists and transform them into a cascade of pleasantry. The strings I play are serenading. I am not as beautiful or as strong or as powerful as Larentia, but I can act like I am. I have done a poor job of trying so most of my life. Now it is not different.

"I know you'll do perfectly fine, Tolly." I try to sound softer than I feel. My exhaustion and the mocking pain of Ara's truth throw layers into it. It sounds low, bitter, and my small smile doesn't change that. " I never have to worry about you. And you don't have to worry about me. I will never leave you. I promise. A Viper for a Samos, just as our- as your- as Larentia taught me."

"Sometimes, when you move, it's like I see her," he mutters.

"Thank you." I give his cheek a pat like I would do with the dogs. He looks half irritated, and half makes one exasperated sound, too much to take it seriously. "Now, let's return to the others. I suspect Maven doesn't like dawdling around. Neither do I."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Btw no one asked but this is my official Ptolemus& Daliah song in my playlist and Idk why but heyy I always listen to it writing them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk4jAFt5VHc


	21. Identity

_𝕋𝕣𝕚𝕘𝕘𝕖𝕣 𝕨𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕥 𝕕𝕚𝕧𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕕 𝕡𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣_

_identity_

_-the distinguishing character or personality of an individual: individuality_

_-the relation established by psychological identification_

_-the condition of being the same with something described or asserted_

_-sameness of essential or generic character in different instances_

* * *

**_I_** lose myself again more often after the day in Corros. The next time it happens, I sit on a table. I feel like I float, staring at the reports in my hands. My ears pound, my eyes burn.

I can't follow the words. Something in me knows that Hector send me pieces of paper. Something in me recognized the small words about my parents and the word 'Loren'.

One deep breath and I can decipher at least some more letters. Nothing new yet. Loren is working on it, he will send something elaborate very soon. Whatever that means. It can't be good. I hope it just means that I have to show patience. But how much patience can I have? Everything I have done so far was a fruitless attempt of pinpointing rebels. On the few occasions someone reports a sighting, they are gone before they can be detained. They have some sort of flying transport and they have operatives that at least know some of the technical aspects of the rudimentary command systems. And they seem to turn invisible wherever they go and disappear.

How much time do I have until Elara and Maven change their mind and decide that I would be well suited for the cell next to Ara? 

The dogs have a distinct smell, and it clings to me with force with the window closed. At least it glosses over the constant scent of the dread from the prison cells that cling to me. I feel the white light flicker behind my eyelids in sterile tiles.

I can't follow anything. A screen flickers in the background of my table. I look up, heavy like a sleepwalker. _Are those my hands?_

I recognize some sort of small broadcast, with Maven's face in the middle, Evangeline in the background, some sort of inspection. Of another kind. No prisoners this time. No one grips my arm or shakes me. Without Ptolemus or anyone that cares, I just float above myself until something in me decides to return.

It happens after another arrest. I'm angry, lashing out at everyone around me. The anger consumes me in flames hotter than any burner can conjure. It feels oddly good to snap. It always feels good to gives orders. It feels good to be valuable and alive. This anger is searing as my hatred, but it grows, and it feels as raw as the days around my period. _Maybe it wasn't my period at all._

The last thing I consciously ponder about is Asher and Bryce watching me. I hiss at them to watch themselves. Hadrien strums around on his feet in the corner of my vision, with One Ear licking his silver sister's bloody chaps. I stare at the blood as if I haven't seen so much of it in the last weeks. Silver and red, dried and liquid. Under nails, in hair. On limbs. Dangling from nooses, shot in squares. 

I watch the dogs' tongue and don't move. 

Then, my thoughts are gone. I have no sense of time. I have no sense of being. If someone just extinguished a candle, my whole being is the smoke that drifts off. I am not a person. I have no sense of time, I don't exist in a conscious form.

I stand in the poorly lit room of a tiny house, the home to a family, then, nothing. I vaguely know I move. I vaguely know I get dragged along. But I don't feel anything. I don't think anything. 

"keep postponing-" A voice next to me says. It keeps talking. "Can we talk about the report to my father now?"

I blink out of the state of dreaming. I sit in a vehicle and we drive over a rough patch of stony grass, a street in disarray.

Hadrien's hand is stained with inky splotches, and the riffles of his jacket stand up in wrinkles.

I brush my hair back. The air is stale and every breath makes it worse. "Now?"

He scratches his eyebrow with the pencil in his hand before staring at a part of my ear. The birthmark under his heavy-lidded eye seems to twinkle when he scratches himself again. "We have an unused time window of a few hours, judging by what Asher told me. Tell me about the prison, if you are allowed to."

"It was a prison. With cells," I tell him brusquely.

"Can you tell me at least something about the way they contain the prisoners? And will we be on the road for much longer? I didn't bring anything of interest with me, and the book is almost full." He taps on the corner of the page. 

"I want to visit my cousin. And then I have orders and a delivery to make at Templyn. So yes, in between transmissions and shortstops, we will be on the road for another week, if not longer." I stare at the ciphers scribbled on the edges of the pages in curlicue. "Why do you even keep these with you when you are on a mission to arrest prisoners and escort me to a secret prison?"

"It would be a boring wait if I didn't have anything to note." He shrugs, a hacked off motion before he rattles on. "And I don't write anything that would warrant my removal. I just shorten some of the things I think and put them down in shortcuts so I don't forget."

One Ear yawns, showing his sharp yellow teeth. I look at the dogs curled together in the foot space. They are so big, so familiar, how did I not notice them there before? 

He closes the book slowly.

"I can make a copy of the ones that are about you," he offers and stretches his legs beside me, careful. "But I wrote about the dogs and the possibilities of mutations the last week, so I don't know if you would care. And I would need to write them out. And you would probably think I was lying about it. People do that all the time. Think others are lying to them. "

Well I can't disagree with that. I clear my throat and shake off the rest of the numb feeling."If you are a danger, someone more lethal will take you out and decipher your books. Perhaps stop writing about New Bloods if you want to live."

He unwillingly stares into the distance, past his glasses, past my face.

"Now that you mention it, maybe I should stop writing in shortcuts. I don't want to be suspected of spying. I don't want to be taken back to that prison in manacles." When he grimaces slightly, the glasses slip down the bridge of his nose, and he tries to push them up, leaving smears above the material. "But that makes everything so tedious, Lady Viper." 

I love being called in form of authority. But something in me that keeps asking Hadrien's questions hopes that some form of familarity makes him open up enough to tell me things that aren't just formal repetitions or tiny scraps about a person I don't understand. I can't trust my guards. Can I at least pretend this one stands behind me when he has to? He is one of mine, he and his father are the most capable. But he is also extremely well guarded and void of social cues and emotions.

"I call you by your first name, and you are one of my people. You can call me Daliah. Just between us."

"Fine. Daliah," he repeats, just as unwillingly. The offer seems to evade him the same as my distress or confusion does. "If you want me to do that, I guess I have no choice."

"Well, no one has a choice. We're all under someone else's orders."

"Maybe. But I guess it could be worse than you ordering me to call you by your first name."

The wheels get caught on stones, and we jump up and down on the uneven ground as we shoot through the day. "You keep saying that."

One Ear yawns again. Hadrien leans down to scratch him. "It's the only thing I know for sure, but I can stop if it bothers you."

If it bothers me? How considerate.

* * *

The airbase is structured like any other military base. I have spent so much time in the air lately, I recognize the lights, the metal fences, the concrete buildings and barracks, the towers in the blinking lights awaiting radio signals, the landing site stuffed with small and big airborne vehicles. I announce myself, and the personnel relies the information about my visit. I have permission to enter the base. 

My guards and Hadrien stay around, for now. They never leave me too long. Perhaps that is a lucky coincidence since I keep forgetting what I am doing. 

Just like the Captain in prison, I am greeted by a superior here. Not a Captain or Major though. This is just a visit, an unofficial one. You don't disturb the higher operations for a family lunch and a small talk here. And I am not a queen.

Lieutenant Laris is a spitting image of clean boots and shiny insignia, and the worst thing is that he is at least one or two years younger than me. His strud and haircut remind me of Roman, and I feel an uncomfortable tug in my stomach- it has become smaller since I am around military personnel all the time. But I can't fully turn it off.

He leads my group along the landing site. Along the edges of the training grounds and barracks, another row of high fences. 

The motors soar behind the metal-plated hide of the jets in the distance, and it almost overrules his voice shouting. He has turned his head to his left. "Viper!"

It takes me a moment to recognize her form in the yarn of bodies moving. They do it half orderly because they are clearly on break. When Laris shouts that one word, only one frame listens up, head perking. 

The first thing I notice is the difference in her gait. She walks much more relaxed, then even loosely jogs. No skirts, instead it is a formless uniformed ensemble of dark colors and combat boots. She carries a helmet under her arm.

Many women in uniforms prefer a braid or stick their hair in a knot when they are on duty. Long hair is still valued. 

Atara Viper used to have long, straight, sleek black hair in a flood, and she was proud of it.

It used to sway open at most given opportunities, accompanying her swaying dresses. 

It accentuated the smudged lines around her eyes and smears of makeup left from the day before in the morning. Now that sleek, black hair is so short you cannot even pull it back. It reaches just barely below her chin. A little ruffled in the back. The charcoal lines are still there, at least, and her face turns as stretched in animosity as ever when she sees me. The untamed distance grows a notch in surprise the longer she stares at my face.

In the same way everything shifts to necessity and utilizing what you can, grabbing every asset tightly, she has changed the style of a girl in times of shaky unease into the time of violence. Knowing us both in uniforms and the military would have rattled me a few weeks ago. Now I have to take it as a given, and I have to swallow hard.

"Well don't you flourish," I greet her. My voice almost gets swallowed over the shouting and the machines. "Your superior says I can borrow you during your break."

She snaps her head away from me. The wind tugs on our bodies. "If you have to." 

Atara has a nod for Hadrien and the dogs. Her eyes lock and linger too long at the sight of my guards. Bryce doesn't even look so sour staring back, and Asher obviously is interested. If it is because Atara is pretty enough to catch attention when you look at her the first time and don't know her yet, or the uniform and helmet, who knows.

As soon as we break off the sight, her body loses some of the swaggers, and instead, she regresses into the same gurning wait she always has when she sees me. For the lurking attack and the daggers, we throw at each other with our eyes.

"Do you have a place to talk-" I look up to the walls around me. Cameras ought to be around, and patrolling officers. They have been doubled since the day jets have been stolen by the rebels. "In private?"

"If you promise not to tell anyone," she answers. "The other cadets and sergeants will find and destroy you and me otherwise. Come on."

And with that, she leaps forward and leads me away from my entourage.

She slaloms between the barracks, harsh, grey concrete in tight squares. It reminds me of Corros. I banish that thought. 

We pass the last building by the fences and I am met with an unexpected sight. 

Ivy and wildflowers crawl between the nips and cracks of the fence. A few big, yellow flowers turn their heads to the way the sun shines. They shouldn't bloom anymore, but they do, and brilliantly so. They lure buzzing insects to their stems. The small, brightly colored flowers are a paradise for bees. Someone even has dragged two old folding chairs here- they are anchored into the space by more vines crawling along with them like chains on ankles.

"I like it," Atara explains and puts the helmet beside one of the chairs. "Because it is quiet. Everyone on the base takes turns coming here from time to time, just to be alone."

"And you are sure you don't like it because the flowers remind you of a certain someone?"

A slight flush of grey creeps over her neck. 

"She writes to me." It sounds almost flustered. I bite my tongue from telling her that I have sent her brother to bring Heron's family down if necessary. "But yes. The greenies on the base made this."

A bee crawls over a lilac flower back to the big petal of the yellow ones. I sit down on the other chair, fold my arms and look at the cloud of yellow bees happily frolicking. A single yellow butterfly joins them, strumming gracefully through the air.

"I came here because I could need you. You're brilliant on birds. You are good at surveillance and at the height of fighting prowess. I need every resource and every animos if it means I can catch rebels and favor."

"I won't leave my training," she refuses, without even another second of thinking about it. "This is what I want to do, cousin. You can stay in the capital with your stolen title and your father and your whisper husband. Leave me alone."

"What if I force you?"

She chews on that, and her eyes are gunshots penetrating me. Her whole being is repulsed by the idea. She looks like she will kick her helmet. 

"Are you really happy, Atara?"

"I'm fine here." She presses the words out of her throat. "The training is hard, but I learn so much. I will become a pilot, Daliah. I will literally fly. I left everything behind after Calpurnia, Loren and I buried father. Everything except Heron. I miss her. But she says she will visit soon. And it is not new. We've been separated the whole last year before Summerton too. Why are you really here?"

The bee lands on my neck, where all the tension contracts my muscles. It is soft and careful. With a few twitching moves, it runs up to my hair. I put my hands up, smooth over it. It still feels a little brittle from all the fire and death. I certainly don't have that much time to care for myself.

"I sometimes don't know who I am anymore, Atara. Something is wrong with me."

"I mean, yes?" She stares at me with a scrunched nose and a wrinkled brow. "Are you asking me who you are?"

"Maybe."

"That's easy," she scoffs every word out. The bees around us flutter upwards. They hum angry now. "You always kicked down on me if you could. Every time anyone made fun of me. Every time Evangeline cut me or Calpurnia made Loren beat me, you laughed at me. When my mother died, you didn't have one nice word for me. You patronized Heron and me. You used me for access to Queenstrial. Your father and you both. _I think you are a horrible person_."

Her words stick uncomfortable needles through the top of my skin. "I never claimed to be good, my darling."

She gives me her mocking smile. "I know. You are a murderer and you are a thief. You are a liar. You are an abuser. It's the way most silver people are. It is how we survive." Her hand stretches out, the smile on her lips fades. The butterfly lands on it, slowly, softly, wings beating. "I don't say _I'm_ a good person. But now that I am away and you're all dead and gone..."

I shift and wheeze out a chuckle. The insects around me move, startled. "Atara, you could have just said that you hated me and moved on."

She looks like I just made the best joke, green eyes gleaming. "I don't hate you, that's the problem! A part of me does. But I don't fully hate you. I wish I just could. You are so horrible, Daliah. You asked me if you are wrong. If you think something is wrong with you, go to your whisper husband and ask _him_ to fix your head. He fucking ruined it even more in the first place."

I want to hurt her. I want to kick her helmet into the fence and unleash something on her.

"Maybe I will." I lie through my teeth again. "And you ask your precious Heron about her relationship with your brother next time you write her."

She seems startled by that. "What?"

"He's with Calpurnia and her, didn't she tell you? He's cozy up there with her. And you're here."

I leave the airbase with no new information, no new ally, nothing. All I have is Atara's words about how horrible I am. 

* * *

I have orders and designated sealed envelopes with me the next time I move on to another target or arrest. Both go straight to the governor, and when I stand in the streets of Templyn, I am surrounded by a lot more soldiers than usual. Most of them looks pale and distracted by something. They march in order, but they don't seem to be too eager. 

The house is small, but again, nothing is as tiny as the huts that held my forst two arrests in the villages. These red clearly have some more luck in the positions they are. They also are a family at dinner when the door flies open. The children rank in different ages. The youngest is not even able to move on their own. It is a baby, startled by the crying that pierces through my skull.

I take my boon, I make my arrest, the rest of the family is in shambles. It is another ripped apart unit, and when I move back out, I can't decide who screams louder, the mother or that baby.

The soldiers don't retreat with me. Even though most of them look almost uncertain. Whatever their orders are. I will leave them to it. Asher drags the helpless wiggling body over the street, leaves a small trace of dirt between flowers in a garden that remind me of a silent hideout in a base.

The mother is silenced first. I only hear one shot. Then there is the screaming of the baby. The crying continues. 

One long sound, a wailing, whimpering nothingness from a creature that hasn't even learned to speak. That knows nothing but the instinct but to scream and cry for help. Then nothing from inside the house. Silence.

Silence that means an end. A death.

My heartbeat vibrates through my bones. It shakes fingers. It shivers and trembles through my face. It forms goosebumps on my back. The skin bursts into bubbles of fear and pain. The vibration travels into my eyes and my lips.

I can't breathe. And if I just stop, I don't care.

The girl looked at me like I am a monster. The prison cells with their mangled bodies. The deadpan face of Ara mocking me. Atara telling me that I deserve whatever will happen to me.

But nothing happens to me right now.

No.

I just watch.

I watch everything die. I watch my enemies perish. I watch soldiers die. I watch children die.

That is what I always do. I watch the corpses form a tower in front of my window and applaud myself for being merciless and eager.

I want to scream. I want to fill the silence of a smothered child with my voice screeching.

I clasp my ruined hand over my mouth to stop a sound. It waves up and down- a twig that shakes in a blowing breeze. Everything in me squeezes together. I press the hand down harder and turn away from the house, take a few steps. If my voice breaks now, no one will ever take my command seriously again. I try to breathe.

Too late though. Hadrien stares at my face as if he sees it for the first time. I turn away and I run. For the first time in my life, I desert my post and I don't care about the consequences. I make it down the street before my legs give in and I almost fall.

The next moment, I spit out gurgles of air mixed with bile. I vomit so violently, I stumble. If I choke on my own puke, I don't even care.

No whisper locks me in place now. For a moment, I fall through the cracks in my head. Everything loses form, and I don't know who or what I am.

The silence is mocking me so loud it breaks in my ears like a pop trauma. My skin widens and doesn't fit me, a badly tailored jacket.

The more I puke, the more salty, cold liquid leaks out of my eyes. They violently tear with every pressing of my guts, procuring more sour drops to fill the puddle that forms around me and sticks to my jacket.

I roll together right here, on the road somewhere in Templyn, and I lose myself again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next part is Samson's POV.


	22. Sublime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo there goes nothing, here is the first Samson chapter of MF and please tell me if I messed up!

_sublime_

_**-** lofty, grand, or in thought, expression, or manner_

_-tending to inspire awe usually because of elevated quality (as of beauty, nobility, or grandeur)  
_

_archaic: high in place_

* * *

_Samson_

**_W_** hen I was a boy, barely ten or so, my brother and I had a tutor.

I don't even remember his name anymore if I ever kept it in my head. I don't remember his face. I don't often keep faces if they aren't useful to me.

But I remember that he didn't last very long in the household. Thought he was a smart guy too. One day, he went off on a tandem about nortan nobles houses being fingers of a fist that work together to form society and crush the weak if they dare to move. He tried to talk about how unity at least needs to be procured to a point that makes us not lose the war against Lakelanders, and it needs to be shown in strength to handle the

I barely listened. I only asked myself what finger on the hand is the most useless. Most people would say it is the pinkie. Who needs that tiny finger, it can't grip anything, right? Who needs a tiny bone when they still keep their thumbs? Losing your thumb must be the worst if you cannot afford to grow it back directly with a skin healer.

He caught me staring at his hands and went on an even bigger tandem. Raised his voice to an unhealthy degree too. You don't raise your voice in the presence of people that are outmatching you, by blood status, power or whatever it is that does make them superior. He was there to teach me a lesson about the crushing hand of Norta. He helped me learn something else.

As it turns out, losing your pinkie is the worst. It balances the rest of your hand. I could watch him struggle to pick up things for over a week until my parents finally had pity with him and had him regrew the finger. Then he disappeared from the house never to be seen again. I had to go to bed without dinner for another week and most of my privileges were revoked. My brother snickered every time he left the room I stayed in.

A pinkie might be the most painful to lose in the long run.

But here's the thing: Every finger on your hand hurts if you are forced to cut them off yourself.

Pain is always horrifying, and categorizing it by severity has brought me to the conclusion that it is inconsequential to not value it. Breaking someone's body is as valuable as breaking their mind. It depends on the time you can invest in the matter. And how visible the wounds you leave with them can be.

The black cloud of thoughts swims in formless screams over every room, and I eat through some of them, every time I stop my steps. I'm not in the mood for most of them and are not allowed to touch others. I am a whisper in their heads, but they are just the same around me, tempting. Like fruit that hang ripe for the taking. 

But you don't need to read thoughts to see some of the people in Whitefire are so damaged and broken they should just fall down and whine. They should kneel and stop pretending they can control anything. They are not the pinkie of the fist. And still, they are walking down the limelight of the corridors and sit at the round table and I am here. Outside at the doorstep, wandering around like one of their measly henchmen. _Like I need to beg for crumbs._

That thought alone is enough to make me grow frustrated. As if I would _ever_ beg anyone for anything. It is always the other way around.

Soon enough, soon. I am here for a reason. Even if cannot penetrate the thoughts of anyone in that room in there, I don't need to. Not when the queen inside is a whisper as well, and one that works incredibly artistic with the thoughts that dwell inside.

Instead of pacing or making a fool out of myself, I stand still, smoothing over my new glove without any ripples. I stand there for another minute. Then two. My leg twitches. I shift my weight.

Not one for waiting, I slowly loose patience. When the door finally clicks open, a flood of coated cloaks and wrinkles spreads. The group of old men moves in a formation. Some, like Samos and Provos, stride straight past me. It rings in the ripples of my mind, an insult to be repaid in time.

They know exactly what they are doing. And if it wasn't for their given safety on top of the food chain, I would rip them apart before they could even take a shaking breath between their beards and dry lips.

Then there's Viper.

My father in law is so weak he needs a cane to walk and his right hand yes man Hector to escort him. He drags himself over the shiny ground and his dark soles leave streaks as he does so. He is so weak that he can't even stand straight, the snake pin on his chest gleams like an outer heartbeat, weakly golden and copper in the light. His face has the same white color as the wall, maybe a little less strong and more broken into his veins.

But he is patient in his misery. 

He has married a woman that will always shame and betray him, and he has loved her for over two decades. She doesn't love him. And he not only knows it but lets her lover walk in and out.

He is a joke and a dying one at that. It's in the bubbling tumors that spread in his brain and the rest of his body for years, barely contained but never cured. Right now, I would only need to kick one of his legs and he would fall, unable to stand up. Relapsing while his legacy is only one rotten, sick daughter herself- luckily, there is also me.

Right man Hector glares, but he is toothless in his primitive protectiveness of duty. He has nothing to say, ever, and he doesn't try to. His wife is far away, his daughter is a child, and his son is a lunatic.

"Oh, Samson. If I'd known you would show up today, I would have put on my good coat. Here I thought it was just friendly meeting after meeting with Volo and Isaac." He tries to sound light. He fails on a level that makes him more miserable, still dragging himself toward me. "I didn't know you were back."

I have been back and inside the Viper household for three days, and he only tries to make flimsy excuses.

It is a void and wasted few syllables of words speaking about his shameful condition on display. I cross my arms, gloved hands holding to my own ribcage, black on blue and white leather and fabric. "What are you doing here?"

He crawls along the stone and the bright light like one of their snakes. His cane leaves a pattern of gong strikes behind that spread to my ears, almost like the squeezed together thoughts in his head. "My job."

"You can't even walk. Leave the meetings to me," I say.

He shakes the cane like an index finger shushing a child. If I didn't need his useless self, I would break his bones with the walking stick. The image passes between our mental connection and he shakes his head too. "You're still not a Viper. If I have to, I will leave them to Hector until Daliah has returned in around a week or two. Stick to reading your wife's reports until then."

I blink through another cloud of his hazy thoughts. I know he knows I am inside. "Her last report was just a love letter about Ptolemus Samos."

Always hiding behind his back, singing songs about his strength, or his unwavering stance, or whatever it is that tints everything adoration.

Ptolemus should be long, long dead, bled out on the night of the ball. 

But now he is at least not hanging around the capital anymore. His use has been shifted to other parameters. He is good at least good at killing things. You can always use someone like that. People have their merit sometimes.

"Hadrien is true to reality," Hector insists from the sideline, even if no one asked him. He looks boring and plain in his black suit. "He only writes down what other people tell him or what he sees."

The other topics get left unspoken. None of them is stupid enough to say anything on the stepstones of the palace. At least that is something you can count on.

"ou know, there was a time they had a very protective relationship. You might have noticed already. It was a little easier knowing that." He says that to stir something in me, and it's bullshit and it is useless. "And then, I needed Macanthos. She was highly influential. It was the best match I could have hoped for. He was a nice man. You would have hated him."

I'm not a child to be told about a dead, scarred woman, scorned by another alive, scarred woman. I have heard it all a million times in the repetition of the merry widow's brain coils.

And I am also not interested in playing favorites with people beneath the heel of my boot. I don't need the Vipers to love me. I need them to serve properly.

"Everything about your family is morally despicable and illicit," I only spit the words beneath his useless shoe soles. "I don't have time for this."

And it's true. I don't have time for this at all. I didn't kill two men and interrogated a diplomat last week only for the slowly dying in the capital to block me. If I could get a title or anything official beyond the name they think but never say...

I pass them on the staircase and walk past, squared, and much bigger than any of them.

My only silent demand is a spear rammed straight through the squeezed together headache.

_I expect you to share what you just discussed, Viper._

* * *

I round up the longest, biggest set of white stairs, to the rebuild and remodeled Square. Not one particle out of order, it's almost reassuring.Archeon lurks and stands around me in stone and letters.

The sun isn't rising, it isn't dawning, nothing like that silly motto of the red rebellion. The sun is a steady point. It rises up to fall. The thought makes me smile a little. _Finish your similes and metaphors before you spread them into the world, small-brained , emotion-driven red rats._

My boots clack on the pavement. The damage has been fixed. The streets have been repaired. Now there is only the lingering matter of the heads inside the palace to deal with. The ones that won't or haven't already rolled. It will be my pleasure.

Beside the bridges, on long poles that gleam like glades and needles, banners sway in the poor excuse of a breeze. I study the face on one of the images besides it.

There is a distinction between empathy as an instrument of intelligent consideration and the act of loving something and caring for it beyond human capabilities to be made.

One is the act of working through someone with precision and patience. It is, as my wife would put it, archaic in the sense that a hunter can understand the prey. The other is selfless and boring.

Both are a waste of time, but at least one leads to a certain degree of success if you want to invest that wasted time. And energy. I understand empathy in an intelligent sense. I just don't care for it. And it is easier to just take whatever you need out of someone's head. You break them open and skin them alive. You cut through their defenses and twist them until they surrender or die. _It's more satisfying that way._

You take what you want, and you take it when you need it. Because you _deserve_ it.

Elara has made an art of cutting a brain into small pieces over time, neither lost in either definition of empathy, but at least understand it to some degree.

It's all I think about seeing the banner with her son's face sway in the wind. I stare at the winding banners for only a second longer, and I try to reassure myself with the knowledge I have and the promise that is made.

I can see her face and her voice reasonably inside the head wearing the crown. She took her time carving a vessel hollow to be impressionable. Children are just quaking, empty things, after all. I never had the luxury to take my time or get the perfect example to take a hit and try myself.

A few days aren't enough to leave a lasting impression in a mind. If you want someone utterly broken you need to savor their defeat in the measurement of blood and tears.

Right now, right here, is the moment they'll talk about when they talk about me, because I contain any anger and insult to hand it back. And I walk through the rebuild street and beside the rubble removed. The cloud is a storm in the distance, and I remove myself from it, walking to my residence, the one that the Vipers occupy.

Thoughts may be tempting like big fruits, but the city is already taken, and we will not let it go before it is devoured.


	23. Absorption

_absorption_

_-the process of something absorbing or of being absorbed_

_-interception of radiant energy or sound waves_

_-entire occupation of the mind_

* * *

**_I_** return to the Viper mansion at dawn. 

I walk among the empty road, hands in my pockets, no weapon needed. I descend from my trip over bridges, taking transports for only half the way, walking my soles off. The road is a safe path in the midst of West Archeon. Only a fool would walk down their tower at dawn and attack a bypasser that is clearly silver. And they are too busy with themselves.

The lights beside me begin to buzz and glitter in their electronic, pale grace. The lanterns bow to me as I strut past them. When the world turns dark, the lights that guide the way shine in bright, celebrational colors. They are searchlights for the stupid and the proud. 

A few moths and other, small black insects that haven yet died in the coming autumn air, flurry around the lanterns. They steal the light and throw their small, inconsequential ominous shadows down.

I stare past them.

The sky is gushing in grey, filled with deep red clouds spreading thin like a slit throat bubbling in a puddle of blood. 

It's as bloody as the tiny splotches on the tip of my shoulder. The smallest hint of a day's work hidden under my jacket. Just for me to know they are there, a secret I don't have to share with anyone.

No one knows about the small dip of taint on me. And no one will ever know, because I am in full control and I am in full perfection. 

I wouldn't murder anyone in the safety of their home in West Archeon. The buildings stand too vigilant and high. And even if I can count on cameras in the palace being controlled if needed, this is still a warzone of the elite and their mansions out here. They stay insides their homes, and you only walk inside their homes if you feel safe enough. 

No, this was about something to close one more chapter of betrayal. One final arc for a botched coup, for a botched assassination. A botched takeover that has ended well, except for the fact that all the public enemies are still free. But a cog is simply one bit of machinery, even if it is an important one, just as a hand has five fingers.

Just like Blonos, like the red servants that made the spectacle convincing, just like every person that knew or doubted about the involvement of the rulers of this country, this one needed to be removed. Last week, it was an old man, and I disliked that I had to suffer through his memories before it was over. Half of them were warped and unreal, but still. This time, it was not a murder.

I didn't do anything to her. She just coincidentally slipped at the end of our discussion. The splotches come from her wrath. She spit on me. And even though the aim of a badly maimed woman at the end of a spiral staircase in East Archeon is not the greatest, she hit the side of my face, with a few straggling drops of her red spit sailing on my clothes.

Needless to say, somehow her body got hurt worse than a simple fall would normally inflict. It's boring work. There ought to be more than a few sentinels, lower nobles, or soldiers to take care of a red usually.

But they're spread a little thin right now. More than one front means more than one change of their respected posts and stations.

And I think I know why Elara makes me do this. She wants to keep me busy so my mood stays good.

I was promised many, many things, many many years ago. It was a promise made by a young woman that wanted to be queen, and it was a promise made to a young boy. I still wait for some of them to be held. Others have been satisfied, and that is the reason why I trust in her to come around soon enough. I do my job, I get rewards. That is an easy system. 

It also helps that the family is so small we can't afford to lose anyone. We are few, rare, and we need to work as one to maintain our status, our power. And our rule build out of violence and blood. Of pain and tears. We cultivate the mistakes and those tears like plants in a garden.

It is getting frustrated some people are off-limit to hurt, to read, or to break. Most of the entourage that Samos drags behind him. His daughter as well. As if she isn't prancing around Whitefire with her brother or the Haven girl. And as if it means nothing if she barks and basks in her own glory. Luckily, in that case, I have access to my wife's faded memories. I know everything about her. How she walks, where she sleeps, what she used to like for breakfast. Used to. Now that the widow is away, my access is far more limited. Admittedly, her spiders and bugs were disgusting as her true self, but at least she had some useful intel if nothing else that made her slightly better than most women.

Men may insult me on a personal level, but with most women, it is something else. It's not that I hate all of them. Many of them rely on their looks. Our society is built around beauty, so in itself, it is what they should do.

But when you're able to read their minds, you notice that they are cruel beasts rather than the exquisite companions or clever creatures that they want to represent themselves as. They are as shallow as a footbath too, for the most part.

Beauty suddenly becomes _void._

It is always a construct based on the most public opinion, and whatever the taste is, it also becomes void of that. Aesthetically pleasing things are as petty and prone to being compromised as anything else. And when there is nothing else in their heads for the most part, except their dangerously stinging self-esteem and their propelling ambition for their children. 

Some are better than others, in so far that they are more than that. Some are brilliant thinkers, cunning politicians, and a few are born for greatness, they know how to take it.

One sits behind a throne right now. Two others are dead or imprisoned.

Most of the silver ladies are so bland and frustrating to read that they lose my interest fast. It's a reason why I never married, despite my flawless reputation. They'd have broken easily, but they would have been a waste of my time to break. 

An easy example for my personal distaste in many women expects my arrival at the house. 

Now that I pass past the fence and ignore the barking from the backyard, I see the small blinking of lights inside the mansion. The main hall is empty and boring as ever. Something stings in my nose. It's the neverending scent of animals spreading their excrements and dirt through the halls. No cleaning can ever get rid of it. When I am in charge here, I will ban them from letting the creatures roam around. Especially the mutts.

"There you are," a voice strums behind me. I don't need to turn around to know Adayne is nervous, agitated and scared. I can feel her weaving around me, and in the cloud of screams, hers are almost soft in vain tumbling falls, like strands of her being brushed and breaking off the head. "Samson, something _terrible_ happened."

Adayne is a woman that has been complimented on her looks among her peers when she was young. A woman that was relatively gifted as a musician. Aged significantly now, her lipstick looks too shrill pink, her dark paced eyes are smudged in crocodile tears, and her chestnut hair is curled like burned splinters of wood. 

She is the most annoying person you can think of, and no beauty or elegance or even use can justify her sheer presence. It nips at my mood. First her husband, now this. Today is not a particularly bright day. 

"She had the audacity," Adayne sniffs. If she clutches her chest, she can't be any more dramatic than now. "She had the audacity to send someone to my home, Samson, you need to do something. We're friends, aren't we? I need friends, especially now."

 _You stupid vain bitch,_ I think, raising an eyebrow. _What did you do now?_

"I would prefer not to have that discussion here," I tell her out loud.

When the cat is away, the mice will play, my father used to tell us _.  
_

_Of course, you can't leave her alone for more than a few hours, she will ruin anything.  
_

It's the reason I don't tell her anything useful and exploit whatever I can- she is scared of me, she splutters secrets about every Viper, and I don't even have to lift one finger for it.

She only nods and follows suits, hands holding herself in her deep personal injury.

It took me a few days to settle in one of the guest rooms. If only because I want that chair in the big study, and so far the current inhabitants fight viciously over it. First it was my wife, threatening me about it, then it was her father. He even keeps changing the locks. 

I'll sit in it soon again. Or maybe I will just smash it into firewood for my personal amusement.

I take my time to sit down, stretch my legs as long as possible under the table. And I don't offer her a seat. 

"It's that-" she swallows an insult for effect. "Terrible person- Larentia. She sends people to our home, they said it was about wishing Deror the best for his ailment, but you know what they did afterward?" 

"They clearly didn't attack you, or drag you away," I take a deep breath, rolling my shoulders. "So words."

"They reprimanded me for my lifestyle, and they threatened me in her name." She sniffs one more time, but when I don't react, she gives up. "They chased my family away."

"I'm sure your lover will come around again."

"They chased my daughter away," she says with force, and her eyes are a green and dark mahagony flicker of anger. It poofs away fast into the vast desert of her brain.

I tilt my head. "Then go visit her, what do I care?"

"She threatened me because I tell you everything," Adayne mutters. "And because Daliah must have snitched."

Did she snitch? Maybe just another round of spite. Or because her devotion to Larentia Viper makes her blind. She would tell that woman whatever she wanted to hear.

I have lost all interest in looking at her. Instead, I start to comb through the side of my hair with my fingers. "Your parties are enough for anyone to come around when the rest of the city keeps themselves together."

"No, no, that is not-" She starts.

"You know, it must be hard for someone like you, but patience is at the outmost important for both of us. You wait for your Viper husband to snuff it so you can remarry. Just give it a bit more time, you may." I let my hand sink on the armrest with force and the smacking sound makes her flinch. "I need patience because I will be the most important man in Whitefire in the future. I only married your daughter for political reasons and I granted her and her father an ascension. I can grant you the opposite if you don't stop. So, for both of us, I say we keep it low until we get what we want. You will not complain about Larentia Viper or anyone else."

She isn't done yet. "But Samson-"

"Go away," I tell her.

She runs off. 

I'm alone in a house full of reeking animals and compromised thoughts. Maybe it is time to call it a day and start better, new, tomorrow. 

When I change out of the spotted bloody shirt, a dusty small jar sits in between the folded clothes. The moth inside is dried, crippled, and dead.


	24. Mien

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS THE CHAPTER BEFORE SLIGHT AND I MISSED TO UPLOAD IT

_(shorter kinda chapter, I don't sleep, sleep is for the weak, schedule, what is a schedule, here you go. Next on the list is a Chasing Fire updates, gotta write some Maven &Cal&Mare and Cameron &Kilorn. 4 ongoing novels were a bad idea but my writing life is in ruins since 2018.)_

_mien_

_-air or bearing especially as expressive of attitude or personality_

_-demeanor_

_-appearance, aspect_

_Like its synonyms bearing and demeanor, mien means the outward manifestation of personality or attitude. Appearance is the most general, but it often implies characteristic posture, as in "a woman of regal bearing."_

* * *

**_B_** reakfast in this house is like a flea circus. Adayne undoubtedly is fast asleep in some snoring, wasted state of mind, but she will provide the tune of silly strings later to fit the others.

The birds and dogs scream all day and night. The screaming gets louder the closer they get to their feeding time. In the morning they are the most penetrative.

As for the silver inhabitants. They prance around in their plain clothes and green harnesses and badges, and they drag all kinds of those screaming animals they deem exotic behind them. None of them sadly makes a backflip to entertain me while I eat.

Only dull Hector shows up, following me around for a while. To make sure I don't prod. Too late for that, but why would I ever tell him?

One of the brown and grey mutts lies in the foyer, directly by the door, watching the guards and growling at me. I force myself not to kick it, hand rubbing over my face. I need a shave, I can feel the stubbles, and I don't like it.

The mutt turns the head on his paws to watch me leave. I'm very sure one of the Vipers is watching.

The palace is safer for me to walk without being watched- what spy would try to follow a mind reader for too long? The Merandus mansion would be more accomodating. But all I have is the dull screeching of animals mixed with the smell of my dying father in law, rutting along in the hallway with his cane.

The things you endure to be powerful.

* * *

 _I_ _throw stones at squirrels in the tree on the day Elara comes around and sits next to me. Everyone has been so foul the whole day that there have been screams and blood, and I prefer to let my brother take the chip of getting in the middle of it._

_The wind streams over our heads in driveling waves._

_I stop throwing stones for a moment, bored of it anyway._

_"It's a pity it didn't work the way it was planned."_

_She makes a low, disgusted sound, mouth tuning into a sharp curve._

_No Queenstrial, no crown, nothing. The disappointment is edged in everyone's faces. There was no competition, no showing off. It was only one singer girl named Coriane Jacos snatching everything for herself. They accused her of using her ability first, but even the hardest opponents could agree on something else winning over Tiberias to be defying any tradition family and the court have held._

_"They say it's love," I say, uncaring for what exactly that even means. I guess love is about a reaction in your body and brain that releases feelings that act like drugs for codependence. That influences your thoughts to the point that your thoughts circle around it in some form of addiction. It's like drinking, smoking, it is like the pills my mother takes when she thinks no one is watching her._

_"Love doesn't matter." She states, a little disgruntled still. "I need you to do something important for me."_

_Who wouldn't want to be told that they need to do something important? Young me is intrigued. "What is it? Do you want me to break someone's legs?"_

_The sharp curve of her lips pushes upward. The thought is clearly to her liking._

_"Not today. Can you keep a secret?"_

_I rub a little debris from the stone off my sleeve. "Yes."_

**_I'm going to be queen_ ** _, a girl with bright blonde hair that surrounds her smiling mouth and awake eyes whispers._ **_It's just a matter of time._ **

She was right that day, needless to say, it to me now that I stare at her and her son at the council table.

The veil is lost. Her eyes are the same as the day she told me a secret on the bench.

I'm almost grateful. My experiences with widows are intriguing, to state it colorful, but I never liked veils and dusty dramatic tears behind it. The widows I know didn't wear veils to hide their pain. They wore them to hide their laughter or anger.

The lack of jewelry or dresses that dominates most of the court is visible in Elara too. She wears her hair in a tight knot.

I'm not allowed in here, always forced to wait for the assembly to break apart. I would threaten my way inside, but I get beckoned closer and move by without having to do so.

Things have been moved around, a few chairs replaced, one is dangerously limping on one metal leg. The desk remains the same, one round shape. With a whole country to look at mapped on it.

My fingers touch it. It feels a little like a naughty kid groping a valuable piece of art, but then again, it isn't like I shouldn't be allowed to touch the table.

Just like the chair in the Viper study, the throne and anything artificially aesthetic it isn't valuable for the craftsmanships, but for whatever process of association, people have for it.

I let my hand run over it in a circle. Material things also express gratitude and status in those associations. You'd be a fool _not_ to want them.

My cousin watches me with an almost disapproving expression before he turns around to his mother again. Pull the pathos off with his cape and crown and he is nothing. But the pathos is there, and there they sit. Talking a little more freely because every eye that is around is is either under our control or wouldn't dare to turn tail.

"They sent the messages about the visit and the inspection of the base out," Maven says.

"Run the broadcast recorded last week as live," Elara answers low, one hand over his, two long, slender hands that bear the resemblance of family. "Just in case."

They know I am here. They have seen me enter. They even _looked_ at me.

I blow out a stream of air. Her hand lingers a moment with some pressure and nails on his, then she pulls it away, just like their smooth eyes that pull off and over to me again.

"Samson, my dear, you are early, we were only scheduled for lunch."

"Naturally. And you're back already, cousin." My eyes don't fix on his face. I'm just looking at the flame tempered crown on his head. _I'll touch that too one day._ "How was your inspection?"

"Some more adjustments," he explains. "But I will leave that to mother in the next weeks."

"So you are here to stay for now?" I ask, and force myself to sound as friendly as I can.

"For now. For a while."

The flash is grey and short, more a tickle than a pain. It breezes into one side of my ear, almost like I hear her voice.

_Now that everyone that has been an easy target is eliminated, I want you to keep an eye on him. We are far from done. But don't get greedy. I know you too well._

"Does that mean I get my wife back?" Just like I like to touch the belongings of others, I don't appreciate thieves of mine. Good leverage for both the bratty Samos and the useless Viper's would be an advantage. _  
_

"Lady Viper is still retrieving some things for me. Maybe in a week or two."

I want to pry into his thoughts and rip out more information, but that would not be appreciated. I don't poach in Elara's territory. So I just stand here, in front of this table, like a beggar, again, just like I was disclosed and left outside yesterday. My gloved hands at my side stretch so I don't move them somewhere else. The inside feels slightly stiff, but not uncomfortably so.

"Don't make him ask, just tell him," Elara admonishes low, dark boots and long silky pant leg rustling when she crosses her legs.

"There were a few...inquiries, from a few people she worked with. One was actually a marriage proposal, it was rather amusing."

From some downtrodden military, no doubt.

"She was also very interested in the layout of the building we inspected. The Captain noticed."

And why do people think that I care beyond the clear question of property and use? They all make the same bad jokes. They all make the same remarks, and they never hit a real mark.

My tongue clacks at the side of my cheek. "Cruel men like her."

His voice is grating in its paltry attempt to sound as if he isn't proud to ask or talk back. He thinks he is clever because all I can do is buckle and pretend for now. That little cretin is nothing but a mouthpiece most of the time, and the other half he wasted the last month either shoving me around to get what he wanted, or lie to other people for the same effect. "Men like you, cousin?"

"She is my wife, that is all."

It's an arrangement made before he decided to meddle in it. If he hadn't made the proposition to strike a deal, I'd be in posession of a broken hull to maneuver around by now. Granted, it would have taken more time than expected, because Daliah can be stubborn and hideously safe in her anger. But I wonder. Was it some sort of pity and preservation?

"Let's move on, shall we? The woman is installed and she does what Maven tells her. We have more important things to care about." She makes an exasperated sound, but beneath taunting breath, there is just something sharp and eager that I value. "A country doesn't rule itself."

I will drink on that later. When this is finally over.

In the safety of the triangular shape in between us, the words are slick and fast. Silent and effcient. Like everything about her.

"I had Samson move on to some of our further departed governors and their families," she says. "Turning some of their subjects around and grating for some general information that a spy usually can't extract from heads. Some are very careful. Some..not."

I hold my head up high. "It wasn't that hard. People are scared. The others are easily removed. At least the smaller ones. And the red ones that know too much too. Purged, disappeared. Had terrible accidents."

"Flawless as always. Some other executioners could learn from you."

The fighting and grating traveling has occupied me too long, and even if I come from the capital, being treated again like lower down nothing is wrong.

"I will be gone soon. I have left instructions. Elsewise, Maven knows how to handle everything."


	25. Slight

_slight_

_-having a slim or delicate build **:** not stout or massive in body_

_\- lacking in strength or substance_

_-deficient in importance: trivial_

_-to treat as slight or unimportant **:** make light of_

* * *

**_I_** t's friday and I am tired of following the empty vessel of my cousin around like a drone. He doesn't acknowledge my existence, he keeps me out of his rooms, and I am restricted from any important meeting.

Yelling at henchman and servants loses the appeal fast. This day has started in a frustrating manner already. The animos mansion is too noisy, and I can't even shower without hearing their too-loud voices and screaming animals. Their dog's hair is everywhere, embedded in my coat when I pull on my shirt even beneath the flawless silver sink. I take my time for grooming, but with the noise, it turns into a frustrating task. Two hands in my hair, I push it back again, smoothing over any imperfection in the bright strands, combing it again, until I am sure I don't look as frustrated as I feel. Not that anyone would notice. I can pride myself with a perfectly attractive face and body, and even if my mind is my weapon, my body is my temple.

Fridays used to be my favorite days. Some were my glory days. Arena fights were a traditional activity every first friday. Now they are canceled for an unspecified amount of time.

My last one is only lying a month back. Before that, there is a small list of wins. Never defeated, though, and that means no one ever would dare to bet against me.

Just because of the boredom, and the slowly unfurling anger that builds inside my system with everyday I get canceled, shut off or send away, I want a fight. Preferably one to win. If it is a hard one, the better. I've had some rough ones, but as long as I win, it doesn't matter. And I always win.

The first was...exhilarating, but it was over pretty fast. After that, some stick out.

I think about a fight I had with a greenwarden, lashing out with vines ready to choke me grey until I lose consciousness. The one with the shiver, ready to split my skull with ice, the one with the magnetron. A few fights with physically gifted silvers, fast ones, strong ones. They cut through my armor, they smashed me into a wall, but in the end, they all lost to themselves. Although I never killed anyone as brutal as I did with the last one. Dragged into that provincial hole and forced to marry that widow, everything needed to be a little more clear, a little more brutal, just to set it off, to release some steam. To win in clear force.

I had an ongoing bet with another fighter once. He was a Swift. Not particularly interesting, but he was good. He was entertaining me. I didn't hurt anything that couldn't grow back under the touch of a skinhealer.

Not a friend. I don't do friends, for the most part. Some entertaining times are best kept in your brain, for yourself, especially if they involve closed doors.

Closed doors are a theme today, not in a pleasant way. My mind wanders, my legs shift, my fingers twitch. I feel my impatience grow. With both the Samos' siblings sneaking around the palace like they own it, things start getting on my nerves. And they occupy the space that I need to fulfill my task to watch Maven.

I can't take one step in my designated directions without one of them getting in the way. And I am not allowed to touch them.

I want to. I want to crush Evangeline Samos between my hands, strangle her with one of her chains. She and that red-haired pet of hers. If I didn't dislike women already, the two of them would make me.

"Out of the way," she says. And then, the whisper of a word gets carried through the air between all of them. It is mouthed and I can read it like the thought of a daytime in summer from a forefront mind.

_Ankle biter._

Her brother is not any better. He's a constant watcher over the palace, over his sister, over my cousin with the crown.

He has the audacity to tell me where to step and where to go. He almost smashes a door in my face one time. Steps in the way in his fancy armor and decorations that don't mean anything.

"You're not invited to stay."

He blocks my way, deliberately. I see it in his face when I force myself to look down. It's a tie between a grin and a growl.

"No one wants you here," he warns me. He dares. He has eyes that remind me of splintered asphalt. A dull black color. "And if I see you touch one hair on my sister's head or the head of my cousin, I'll cut yours off."

Does he think he can threaten me?

I want to laugh. My eyebrow moves up slightly. "Don't worry about your sister, there is nothing inside I want to know, she is boring me, I know all about it. Your cousin is not your concern, because she is my wife. I can do whatever I want with her."

The shard dwindles in the air for a moment, then it melts forward, straight into the wall. It's sharper than most knives and as fast as a bullet. If I wanted to, I could force his hand and make him cut himself. A million small cuts, through his armor, into his head.

I could carve those condescending eyeballs out, the tip of his nose, until nothing in his face is left to grin or threaten me.

It's a challenge. I want to take it. I miss being challenged. I miss winning. I miss proving my superiority.

The shard sticks to the side of his shoulder again with the swipe of his finger. He holds the hand upward, waiting. It's tempting to invade him right now, just to prove a point. Just to show him that he can take his metal and shove it where the sun doesn't shine, and I don't care whose son he is then.

"You think I need to be in your head to know what you are? I can smell it from across the street." I will put it in simple words, so he can understand. "You want to call her a sister too, but you can't, just like you can't do anything when I get my hands back on her, and you can't do anything You'll always be a brave little guard dog, just like my in laws have their mutts. You just pretend you have anything worth looking at. You're not even that great of an executor, your fail rate for the rebels, oh, you're horrible at killing and catching them, Samos."

Every wire in him clicks and throws sparks around, and the grin is completely gone.

"You want a fight?" I beckon. I don't need to be in his head to see he wants to. "You are not worth my time. You should be long dead. I will make you swallow your shards and chew on them until your tongue and throat rip and cut, and you drown in your own blood."

He's almost at the edge of attacking me when that red-haired pet of his sister appears. His future wife, but just in between the rumors and the thoughts I have tapped in the past, just with the rotten widow's memory, I know that he isn't the one she is most loyal too or interested in.

"Your slimy head," he repeats before he turns around. "I'll take it one day, Merandus."

* * *

I find my in-laws without their mutts in one of their rooms in Whitefire, and I walk through their guards. They never bother to stop me anyway, not the sentinels, not most of the security.

They quieten as they hear the door and immediately get silent, biting their tongues. I want to make them swallow them.

"I'm not in the mood to play games," I tell them and try to smooth over the angry crinkles in my brow with one leather-gloved hand. "Not with you, not with anyone in this flea circus. All you need to do is give me what I want. Just tell me the important bits. And we can skip what will be painful for you. What is so hard about it?"

They both harden under that. Their shoulders straighten absurdly.

"Because you don't deserve it," Hector hisses.

"Luckily," My mouth curls up slowly. "You don't have to decide what I deserve."

It's easy to fight two old men when you're able to simply control their minds. First, it is Hector, and I break into him like a flood breaks a dam. He struggles in long, hacked off breathing, but he can't escape me, because I am inevitable.

It's easy to fight two old men when you're able to simply control their minds. First, it is Hector, and I break into him like a flood breaks a dam. He struggles in long, hacked off breathing, but he can't escape me, because I am inevitable.

He is scared, face falling, sweat gathering. And he should be. Behind that pragmatic mask sits a man that has lost everything to his family. It's a theme with the animos, they don't know how to regulate themselves in their duty.

_"I'm just keeping an eye on the family, now that we are all here. Well, not all."_

His son appears in worried flashes in his head, the worry that he has whenever he changes something in their lives, it'll break him, but he can't, he has to punish and discipline the behavior, and he has to teach his son to adapt to it. And then a flash of his wife and daughter appear, and he misses them to an extent that makes my toenails curl and my tongue taste something foul saccharine.

_"Speaking of fighting, Calpurnia has retreated into the summer residence in Summerton. She has been hiding there for around a week now."_

I could do permanent damage to him, but I still need him intact for now. As much fun as it would be to see them fight, I have a limited amount of time before someone wonders why we are all here, and I just want to make clear to them that they have no choice.

So, instead of making him shoot or stab himself, I do something that's usually not my style. I let him run against the side of the wall, one time, twice, hitting his head against the stone, blood breaking out of pores. And he struggles until he blacks out.

The blood is a small puddle around his plain suit, hands outstretched, body twitching. He'll take a moment to regain consciousness and spare a small kick to his head while I walk past.

"Are you going to tell me what I deserve now?" I ask him.

Beneath his wrinkles and the grey in his black hair, the current inhibitor of the chair in the Viper mansion, my father in law, is ashen colored and sick. "You're foul today, whisper."

I blink that annotation away. "We've done this before and we'll do this again. Just tell me what I want to know and stop being coy."

"If there was anything that your Queen and family wanted you to know, they would tell you, the rest is for me to decide. Everyday since you came back you pester me."

Pester?

A man with lowly animals and a useless family in his home dares to call _me_ a pest?

"I'm getting sick of this," I tell him, voice low, and his cane falls to the ground the second my mind eats his. It clutters over the ground below the recovering body of his henchman. It leaves a trail of noise before it lies still beside a cupboard.

I burn through memories, and even though he is a very orderly man, he pushes some thoughts and memories in the front, and I need to sort through them for assessment. It's strange how he keeps thinking about his daughter, and his memory drifts from a young woman in a wedding ceremony over one screaming in a cell, back to a child- a child he feels that he wronged. In the end, they all regret things, and that makes them weak.

_Who knows how long she has been running around unsupervised at night, judging by the deep circles and wild hair, a toddler on the run from their lawless watchers. It's the only time that he remembers her awake and around, loud and unruly, she will be a model child in the next years, especially since the day Larentia picks her up to mold her._

_The armchair creaks a little when he shifts his weight. He's a patient man, but he has been on his feet the last two days with merely one small pause to relax and take respite in. Having your daughter run around and climb on you in a state like this is not what he needs, so he tells her to stop._

_He is so tired that a spark jumps on his hands and his anger ignites in frustration. He could shake his daughter, just shake her until she stops being loud. Just sit her up and slap her, yell at her, anything._ It'd be so easy, and I hope for a moment that he will give in, because in the truth that is the kind of man he is- he is a pitiful creature seated in his frustration.

_Her eyes are big. In the snap of a head, some wild grimace and laughter turns into the wavering tears of a child._

_That is the moment the anger evaporates. He feels reprehensible._

_"You know you should be in bed, you know I don't have time for you."_

_His voice is as inconsequentially soft as her thin face._

Children always have something bizarre and outlandish to me in their big eyes and squeaky voices. They look like frogs most of the time.

_"Just go back to bed. Everyone is asleep."_

_"Goodnight," her child-voice whispers in his memory._

_Then the cat incident happens, only weeks later, and his wife screams at him to get rid of it, break its neck, drown it, feed it to the dogs. And for a long moment, he can't even say if she means the cat or their daughter._

I shuffle through the years of regret and anger, frustration and the defeat of someone that gave up on himself years ago.

Hector in his corner stirs. It takes a while to reach a certain point of today again, but it feels like it is worth it.

A chit chat with Provos. _Now two old wrinkled men left walking beside a complex of bordered buildings, pillars and cupolas, beneath cameras blinking. Provos stops, golden cuffs, and rings as pompous as the cut of the buildings along the square._

_"Everyone knows nothing is left, if you press out fruit for juice, sometimes you need a new fruit, that is just how it is if you want a full glass."_

_As if that wrinkly hands have ever done more than take a full glass, I think, and to my surprise, my father in law thinks about something similar, but less serious._

_"It's all empty," Provos says. No big truth. Just one no one talks about. "It has been for a while, we are all at the mercy of our financial backers. Volo could tell them to waltz with one of your dogs and they all would because we have virtually nothing left. We could make the royal treasury a prison and we would have more use for it."_

_"We have construction workers all over Whitefire and the city, if we were to make it a prison I'm pretty sure we'd notice."_

_"Would we? How about you keep an eye on it, old friend. I suspect you're a lot closer to our new king and his family, your daughter is planted right in the middle of them."_

_He lets that drift by, eyes blinking into the dusty autumn sun upon the sky._

_A plan and a meeting for more military efforts, more dogs and more animals for different purposes._

And he can keep it hidden as hard as he wants to, he is afraid. He is afraid to die, he is afraid that they lose it all again, he is afraid of me.

Rightly so, I'm done with playing games.

I take whatever I want because I have the privilege to do so. It's only the common sense of politeness and the socially constructed hierarchy that makes me stop. I could have the top of the world, and I will.

Something below the doorframe moves, I can feel it in the cloud around me, and I feel my bones stretch and my body shift. The Vipers are half-sunken to the ground or struggling to stand up.

I have no patience for spies and incompetence today. The doorhandle creaks slightly, the leather of my glove spans and makes a low sound accompanying it. My sight catches a blurred form in a suit. All the ladies wear suits now.

It takes two corners to catch her.

She is fast, but I killed and hurt faster. The mice come out to play when the cat is away. And sometimes they think if they follow the cat, they can outsmart it.

If this is just because the little silk spy is always trying her best to imitate her grandmother, even with Ara gone, or if it is her own move to fish for any kind of lead, I don't care. I have a practical use for knowing anything her family may be up to. She shouldn't have tried.

"You're one step too close to comfort, little spy."

She could fight me, but if she starts to attack, I am in the clear to handle her in whatever way I want. Just like I hoped for that oaf Samos.

"The things I could do," I promise her, and she cranes her neck back. It's like a choregraphed dance. I lead, of course. And I lead her body to a trap, where no one can see her.

She is trapped between a wall, a dead-end, and the promise of my hands and my head ready to break into her interior.

Her kind tries to trap you with their beauty or charm and then extracts whatever they need from you. Irals or that shadow brats, are all the same for the most part.

Her face is scrunched together under my fingers when I lean down to grip it. It's a small miracle she even speaks as clear as she does. Her lips press together in a smushed mass. The color on her dark skin covered in some powdery smeared makeup leaves stains on my leatherbound hands and clothes. "You could, but you wouldn't, you are too smart for that."

"True, but I don't like obvious flattery, spy."

I could do the same thing I did with the Vipers. There must be some interesting things in her head. But not here, not now, not in the open of a hallway, no matter how quiet and detached.

Don't get greedy, Elara warned me.

I wouldn't want to overstep that warning. And she is right. As soon as she returns, though, we'll have to renegotiate some terms, I want what I was promised.

When I let go of her head, I see her hand wander back from her waist, and below the form-fitted shirt of her black suit, something metallic blinks. I wonder if she'd have stabbed me if I had tried to break her.

"You can run back to your spy brood and Salin and tell him whatever you want to, as long as you make sure to tell him I am not one to play with."


	26. Perniciousness

_perniciousness_

\- _highly injurious or destructive: deadly_

_\- archaic: wicked_   
  


* * *

**_R_** ain pounds against the window like the desperate hands of a prisoner begging to be freed. The water draws streaks over the glass, butthat's not what wakes me up.

Something tickles my cheek. It feels soft first, like the hair of a careless lover that turns in their sleep and flings themselves toward the face of their dreaming partner. It's the gentle caress of a hand on my hair too, a gesture for good dreams.

But I don't share my bed with anyone. I sleep alone. More on guard than even before I clashed in the palace, but still untouchable.

When I fully come to my senses, the soft feeling on my cheek has turned into a light, nipping scratch.

Too many legs wander over my face.

Two big black spiders wander over one side of my face.

One runs up a strand of my hair, pincers clicking, eyes moving, before it sits perfectly still in the tousled mess, somewhere I feel the weight but can't see it.

The other stays on my cheek, next to my mouth, almost casually stretching, waiting.

There is only one person even in a house filled with crippled animal handlers that would dare. Something under my rib expands in a burst of a hiss.

I could rip its brittle body apart, but who knows what that would do to my face. I know she loves creatures that cause minor discomfort and pain.

I keep my head on the pillow and only blink into the dusky grey nether light. The spiders don't retreat, but they don't wander down, not beneath the length of my neck, even though my naked skin gives plenty of spots to bite. I don't need to guess that it is because everything about physical contact makes her uncomfortable, and she would rather let me burn her eyes out than admit that there is a body below my neck and shirt. That body gets impatient, slowly.

Outside the room, the mutts run through the house and bark. Another voice, and even more commotion.

I close my eyes again, extending toward the noise.

Hearing her thoughts is wrapping yourself in a torn blanket made of chainmail. I bask in the short, pitiful burst of anger and hatred. Sometimes when we watch each other, invade each other, creep inside each other, we are mirorrs reflecting each other in an endless loop. I see her how she sees me, that strange warped image of a spider in the dark, the missing movement and the missing light form a strange image of one half-closed eye and my hair in disarray.

 _"Welcome home, wife,"_ I whisper.

The spider slowly moves over my mouth as I speak. I breathe in. For the fracture of a moment, the leg almost slips in between my teeth.

_Do you come to me or do I need to make you?_

I get no answer to my question.

The spiders retreat, and the footsteps are frantic in the house. I slowly stand up, the blood rushes through me, the air is a cool breeze.

Something feels wrong in the connection. Something is broken. She's like her limping dogs after an attack. Even in the house of compromised thoughts and tethered emotions, I can feel it slipping into one pant leg after the other. She slips and rattles like a broken machine, and the break in her mental state almost makes me slip. I hold the buckle of my belt so tightly my hand is grey, cut off from blood flow, if only for a moment.

_I'm waiting._

Still no response. One of the big black bodies scrambles away in fear. I pick it up with both my hands. The small red and orange flecks on its tarnished form shine. It fights and struggles desperately until it almost willingly rips itself apart in my grip. The legs try to bend to their lower back no doubt some sort of attack or defense, and I enact a little more pressure on one of the legs to stop that.

"I'm not very patient with your lot anymore," I say out loud before I let go. The spider falls to the ground. It makes no sound when it scrambles off.

She doesn't knock. She kicks. It's a very Daliah Viper thing to do, half dramatic, half angry like her snapping dirty animals.

We share the tousled, hastily curved back hair. Everything screams about the road, from the mud on the boots to her dirty black jacket. Strangely, for only a second, nothing is more aesthetically pleasing than the mud and water in her wild hair and the wet, soggy clothes that cling to her delicate body. She misses blood on her lip to be the perfection of beauty. She always wants to be dressed in black and silver, doesn't she?

The thoughts sting and vex me, like always.

"It took you long enough." I close the last button on my shirt. "Close the door behind you."

The smell of the animals around her is too strong to be described than anything but wet dog. I hold back a wretched sound moving closer. It's not exactly a happy reunion. And in behind the closure of four walls, no one will ever come to step in the way. In this house, no one tells me where to go anymore.

"My cousin and your father commend you, but you come back in the dead of night like a coward..."My hands find the pounding vein on her throat. I let my hand stay just for a moment before I put it on her shoulder. "What did you do wrong?"

_How about I find out?_

With a hard push, she swats my hand off, at least she tries. My hand holds on too tight, and the button on top her wet jacket rips open.

"I know what _you_ did. You overstepped the line, snake," she sneers.

"If your father had given me full control, I wouldn't have needed to do that. It's your fault."

_Your fault because you are all stubborn and your fault because you weren't here. Your fault because you are all compromised. Your fault because you are choosing to stay with your dream of a makeshift family, with siblings that don't belong to you, and that won't protect you now._

I feel her intention to kick, scream and attack before she moves. Her right hook swings too wide.

The next is a silent fist, and I stop her hand midair without moving this time. Slipping into her skin is easy. She can't force me out and push me away. And as much as I dislike the circlets of deciphering pathos and patterns in animal talk, there's something alluring in her basking in regret for small things. Just like the scars. A cracked porcelain figure. Never intact and never as pretty as the usual, but at least interesting to look at from the right angle.

Her face grows frantic and her mind runs in circles again. My wife is as inconsolable and panicking as her rotten mind allows. Something is still not right.

"Something is wrong with your head. But the way it's wrong has changed." My nose exhales a torrent of lukewarm air on her skin. "You're cracking under the pressure."

"Watch me crack your skull," her voice hisses. She wreaths and strangles herself in my grip, and her anger is almost admirable just as much as frustrating. She still doesn't get to make one step.

The rain clashes against the windows by now, the animals are loud again, always, the noise spikes my annoyance by now.

"What made you soft again?"

She lets the insult go by and slowly ropes her body away from me, just enough to lean down and pick up the broken spider that scurries over to her, and I feel a shiver of deep roted disgust.

"If I tell you, will you stop drilling into my head? I have a migraine and I need to sit through countless meetings tomorrow."

_**Don't get too greedy, Samson.** _

She still has that chair. She has that because of me, and I will make her watch when I take and burn it.

"I don't promise you anything."

"My family is off limits now too." The second spider crawls up her leg, up the wet fabric of the broken uniform, into her ripped collar. "There was something I delivered to Templyn, I didn't look. It was orders and...I had to retrieve prisoners. They killed a baby. My stomach didn't make it."

"Babys and animals," I mock. " That's where you draw a line. Always weak for them. It was the same for the Lerolan children, before they got killed in the explosion. What was in the envelope you didn't look at?"

"They kept the corpse of the child. With an alarm switch. Asher says it was there was letter. Hadrien says it most definitely was that too."

That catches my attention. "Did they read it?"

"I don't know, Samson." Her fingers cup the spider gently. "I do however know what discretion means if it saves my head. If I had looked, I would be sitting in a cell next to Ara Iral in a prison made of silent stone, I'm pretty sure. They came to the trap. Barrow was there. She was not alone."

Always one for coming home beaten, bloody and on the losers side. It's integrated in her core being.

"So close. Always. Until you break down."

"I am never going to break down."

 _They were there ,_ her head screams. _The alarm was set off. And I missed them. First the bowl, then the ruins, Harbor Bay, now this. They slip through my fingers._

"Are you asking me to fix it?"

I watch her small form with the scars littered over the front of her skin. There is no fixing her. There is no fixing anything, even if I was feeling generous enough to do no harm in her mind. I'm not even sure how to do that. What is gentle care worth in torture and interrogation? I'm not a healer. And I don't want to be.

Her grey eyes are hard and small, her hands still cup the spider. "You don't fix, you kill."

"The eternal fix," I tell her, fingers running over her brittle black hair. She flinches under the touch. "Take a bath, I need you put together tomorrow. And tell your dog of a cousin if he dares to try and step in my way and protect you, I won't care who his father his."

"If Ptolemus or anyone wants to murder you, I won't tell them to stop. I've been a widow before. I have worn black since I was a child. It suits me better than green."

* * *

I don't get my night's rest, but that doesn't matter. In the deep below, the stinking dogs guard a whole corridor, patrolling around the noise of a droning pipe on one side and a bedroom on the other.

No violins.

As long as the merry widow is licking her wounds, I can use the time to have an interrogation that doesn't involve myself questioning my personal taste.

I broke Hector into pieces, time to break his son too.

At least he doesn't close himself up in a locked room. He is huddled together in a stack of books and he doesn't try to sicc any creature on me. He doesn't even look up before it is too late.

Working inside Hadriens brain is like blowing away smoke. Everything moves in rapid successions and nothing stands still. It jumps from a moment to another in full arbitrariness.

He's deeply uncomfortable. If someone hit my teeth with a swinging tuning fork, the same sort of uncomfortable vibration would spread.

This one was called a lunatic. He is- he squirms because of all the strangers in the house, after he has had to make it his home and integrate himself in this space, and leaving it behind again.

He feels wrong. He isn't feeling anything. Everything revolves around passages from textbooks, about the flashes of images, about clips of his brain removing themselves to reform.

_If the coat color mixes- a red-blue silver-green - what is a possibility- mutations occur in every species- deficiency- is this transferable one to one to humans- the difference between red and silver in our blood-_

And then there are flashes of his family, and his father is some form of undeniable beacon of command, teaching him what the world does, and he tries to copy it, but he does never understand. His family touches him and he wants to run and hide in behind his staple of words. Some vague feeling in for a girl, gone and back, always trying to be gentle and nice, and her name is a flash of light in red and black, boots on the ground, white teeth exposed smiling, _Mariella, Mariella-_

The spectacles on his nose are flying to the ground now. He takes two more steps back and in his mind, the words sway and swing, blackened in a panicked frenzy, a scared horse, he is not able to do anything. He is a child in the head of a man, and he is going to break beneath my pressure. His face crumbles. He bends backward. My boot slowly stands down on his glasses, and just as I crush the glass and metal, my grip closes around his head.

_Your reports were useless, how about something vital?_

Nothing can keep them safe. They failed. They are useless if I don't make use of them.  
  



	27. Offer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I FORGOT TO UPLOAD CHAPTER 24 "Mien" AND I AM SORRY I NOTICED TOO LATE A CHAPTER WAS MISSING

_offer_

_-to present smth as an act of worship or devotion_

_-to present smth for acceptance or rejection_

_-to threaten someone_

* * *

**_U_** sually, the house awakens in the sounds of the shrieking, hungry animals, ready to be satiated. Tonight, it stays bright in shouts and yells. Too many feet, too many shocked voices.

It's not my fault some people can't handle themselves. It isn't my fault that the lunatic lost it after I broke into his head.

The whole backyard is filled with the dogs jumping against the kennels, the other animals push against their glass walls and bars in screeching anger.

I make sure to double-lock my door before I fall asleep sitting, and I regret that. My neck is sore in the morning.

Even a long shower doesn't free me from my soreness. Their noises have long started to irritate me to a critical point.

The breakfast table is very, very empty. On the hallway, only scurrying servants hush fast past, head low as they should, and the big mutts lie stretched out in a waiting position.

The eyes of the dogs follow me, circling around with their teeth exposed.

"Too scared to face me, are you all?" I mutter toward them, and the smallest, grey one, snaps at me, hair standing up. "Oh don't worry. I just want the best for your family and for me."

The dogs distract me from an ambush behind me. I get pushed in the back, with as much force as possible. The hands are small with angry claws as nails, and it isn't very surprising to see who has come for me. In the dim morning light she looks sour and angry, pale.

"Do you know what you did last night? You shouldn't be here anymore." She hisses the words and shoves me again. The dogs behind me snap at my ankle and I think about the insult in between muttered words. _Ankle biter._ "Off-limits, Samson, means off limits. Hadrien didn't do anything, he only follows orders."

Nothing is off-limits, but she refuses to understand it. My thumb carves over the scars in her split face, cheek to lip. "As do you."

Her body flies back, winding in an attempt to make space. In an attempt to escape.

"Stop touching me like that or I will puke."

As if I ever listened to that.

My hand reaches out again, with more force this time, leaving the usual bruises on her arms, holding her too tightly as she wiggles and fights. Her black gown is so heavy, it folds over in crinkles and weights her arms down. The fact she is still not dressed is another slight.

"I told you to look presentable."

"I'm not accompanying you, I have meetings and then I will be with Evangeline the whole day."

My throat makes a disgusted, gurgling sound.

"You overstayed your welcome with my father," she warns me. A part of her is probably very happy. "You long overstayed it with me."

"We'll see. You make it harder for yourself than you should."

"We will never bend to you," she whispers and fights against my grip again. "Even if you hurt us. It will only anger us. Hector plans to feed you to the dogs. Accept your defeat."

"There is no defeat. You are all mine." My hands bury into her bones, and my tired head and sore neck crack down. She weights nothing, and I push only slightly until her head hits the wall. Her struggle deflates in my mental grip, there is nothing for her to do. Just like last night. She has no chance to win this fight. "You are mine."

I could kiss her, so close is her dried out breath in hefty batches. I could also just kill her. It's tempting. I forgot about the damned dogs though. 

Their growling is loud enough to sound like a starting engine, the sounds of something in the back of my legs ready to move in on an attack. 

"The good thing about being surrounded by trained dogs is that you don't need to control with your mind to follow commands," she tells me. "And I never let them starve."

There is no denying that even her guards lingering around the foyer look at me with cautious care, ready to pull a trigger. It still isn't as if I didn't get what I wanted from the assault on the lunatic boy last night. He has a very good memory, even if it is parted in strange mazelike labyrinth roads. I know everything about the trips that my wife makes. And that aforementioned letter is a fresh ripped out memory I own now.

I have lost my patience. I lost it a while ago. I only keep it for a renegotiation.

I do nothing but swing back and forth between the mansion and the palace, and the rejections and the small victories are all that carries me forward. 

Without Elara around to navigate and alleviate some of the damage, this place feels half empty and half like a madhouse. And they keep ignoring me.

Renegotiation it is.

* * *

"You look tired," my cousin observes. As if his whole black and reddened getup doesn't make him pale and spindling instead of regal, and as if the cape is still not too much, as if he doesn't need a haircut with the black hair finding a way to escape whatever he intended to do with it. At least I shave and dress accordingly, and my clothes are soiled with blood and gore far more often.

"I cracked a few minds and found something interesting," I put my hand out between us, hands gripping the edge of his table. My nightly trips in Whitefire have led me in every room, bit by bit, observing and breaking, planting and supplanting, and now I am here, and you would suppose that a king's study is broad and tall. But it isn't. Just like the ladies dress in simple black suits and the forces stretch so thin that I am misused as a better soldier, this is boring and plain. It misses even out on his unnecessary pathos and it misses out at showing any physical, artificial luxury. "You left a present in Templyn. You left a piece of paper. I found a few people that read parts of it. What a beautiful love letter."

Like a fish on land, or a dying man drawing the last breath, my cousin takes a small, small breath.

A blind idiot could see what I tell him. His mother did tell me to keep an eye on him.

"You don't say a word about this," he says low. "And in return, I will put in a good word for your misbehavior with the animosi with my mother. And I will even give you a hint on how to take them over in good graces. I like your wife, but I want you to succeed."

Put in a good word with his mother?

I am over threats, I make them, I forge them, and I enact them.My hand smoothes my hair back before I lean forward.

"I don't see how I would need a good word. I don't care about their good graces. They hated me before. They are begging to set their poison and teeth loose now."

"Your father in law has been a business partner for years, you don't see how his complaints may upset her? He has been useful to her. I wouldn't say she likes him more than she likes you," his blue eyes trail off my face over the to the wall. " But if he complains, she'll tell you to be less obvious about things. And she will cut you out of any reward for all your hard work, just to punish you. I don't want to see you go emptyhanded, cousin, so think about it as a small gift. And you do want to keep your wife, don't you?"

That again. Always this. I need to be a jealous jailer. All those leering mouths trying to take a bite out of my piece of cake. "Maybe I should put a collar on her, like her mutts, so people stop questioning my ownership and claims."

His head tilts in interest. "A collar. Not the worst idea. I had a similar thought a while ago. I would have suggested a mark of sorts, but unlike other people, Lady Viper has a preference for visible markings."

_You can't taint a wall that is already dirty._

I smile for myself.

"Regardless." Now he is the one buckling. That sniveling small boy. The crown on his head seems to slither forward when he bents over the table. It gleams in a spiked row of alluring precious metal. "I apologize if you feel left out. I merely keep myself surrounded by who I need when my mother is not around. You understand use, cousin. And because of that, I ask you to keep this between us. Confidential. Don't tell her about the letter."

You don't take the first offer that someone gives you. You don't stop at incapacitating a man when you can kill him. You push a demand again and again until you get what you want. I don't agree on his deal. Does that make me greedy? I don't care. "What do you propose I do now?"

"If you want the animosi to be compliant, you should give them something they want. Let them think that you're going to work for them and that you're not trying to break them. Call yourself a friend for a while, Samson."

The air is stale. A thought burrows in my head, a small, easily retrieved idea from old Hector.

"They want that old snake Calpurnia."

He leans on his hand. It is an imitation of his mother in the finest sense. "Is she still alive? That is sloppy."

He is right. It _is_ sloppy.

"Maybe it is time I leave the capital again for a short trip. I heard she hides in the Viper residence."

Yes. That sounds like a nice diversion. And it will breach some of the cracks to show I can be gracious.

He gives me a small smile. "I would never tie you down to only sit around and watch me give speeches or through inspections and meetings. You won't miss much. And if you want me to, I make sure to keep the Samos siblings away from your precious property. I think we sometimes start off on the wrong footing, but we shouldn't- I respect everything you have done for my mother and me."

My nose flares once, thoughts piecing together some plan. Not a bad idea at all. Finally, a small recognition of how much I have done that just goes by unnoticed.

He sits up again and the hand he leaned on holds up to me. Imploring me. "Don't disturb anything else down there, though. Some other...things need to be sorted through with certain families, and I can't yet set someone on them in the open. It must be a quick and silent trip. Into her hideout, and dragging her back. Because I know you can be very, very quiet if you want to."

"I'll be back soon with a present. I forget sometimes," I tell him, standing up. "Your mother taught you well."

"Safe travels," is the only farewell I receive.


	28. Pas De Deux

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a thing for symmetry in this series, so ch. 28 in PV was titled "Danse Macabre" why don't I give him the same courtesy of something vaguely related/some form of mirroring and we call it a day.

_pas de deux_

_-a dance or figure for two performers_

_-an intricate relationship or activity involving two parties or things_

_French, literally, step for two_

* * *

**_R_** eturning to this shabby, poor excuse of ramshackled villages and the abandoned residences of the silver nobles, all alone, could be considered a walk of shame.

I consider it a diversion. I need to blow off the steam from my system or I will not stop for anyone's standards and stances. I could see it as another arena fight, but neither an old woman nor a scared boy are a good opponent.

Deep in the guts of the night, the old mansion of the animosi looks unkempt.

Beyond the wall, a single light flickers in a window. As hastily as it appeared, it whists off as it gets extinguished. 

The gate to the fallen yard stands wide open. Plants have started to catch up on the metal and walls even more. The downfall of a house and the silent perpetrators aren't even present to watch. A single high arching lantern on the yard is lit in silver light.

It seems about right that the old witch hides here, where her past days shine brighter than the rejection she has received.

No one expects my arrival, no one comes to stop or to greet me. I remember the last time I set foot in the blasted mansion. When Gideon Viper was still alive, throning with a short heaved breath and leaking poisoned sweat on his brow in his tall room with the heroic plastered flags of Norta and his house. Even then, his brother always stood in the third row, right behind their aunt Calpurnia, unassuming. He didn't need to act much for them to believe he was a hopeless minion. Doctors and healers always feasted on both brothers like tiny parasites in their bodies. They've defected. The fact that I walk into the door now and one is dead and the other is dying excruciatingly painful is making me smile.

The whole house of snakes could only produce one female person that has made it due to beauty and marriage and tries to put her daughter on the throne now to make up for her own defect too. I wouldn't call it a success.

Above a broken bench, high in a tree that has lost life, one big owl sits and watches me. The head twists around to keep the eyes on me.

They know I am there. But it is too late to run now.

Above the house, in its cracks, all between the stone and the rooms with their closed doors, thoughts don't need much to slip through. They can never stop thinking if they are alive. And so they can never hide from me. 

I am inescapable.

It takes some of my energy away to continuously barge into minds and keep them, but I am trained on a strong grip and there is nothing I like to do more than hold and wipe out the resistance.

The owl screeches behind me. I don't care. The door is closed and locked. Smashing in a window could be a possibility. A large loose stone just sits behind me like a present. Instead, my body wanders around until I find what I have been looking for. Just above me, where I saw the blinking light, he still just watches me.

Loren Viper's mind is like a cloudless day. It isn't very deep. He isn't very smart. His cousins and uncles have capacities for brilliance locked behind walls of madness and strangeness, they feel too strongly in hate and regret. Loren only knows fear, like a poor little bunny. He wants to run so fast and so hard. He can barely breathe.

Satisfaction streams through me knowing that he fears me.

Inside his skin, I stretch out.

He is alone in the room of his sister. A sentimental brash second, just because they used to be close as children, and then they broke apart like their family did, with a dead mother and a teenage girl that was stingy and mean, and he was supposed to stay stationed at the warfront like a good son. Like most sons in their younger years, bending to the experience of war. He was promised so much by his great aunt and his father in return. He believed their seasoned sweet words.

Idiot.

To say I hate little wet blankets like him is an understatement. But I hate even more that he had the whole world in his pocket and wasted the opportunity.

I could cut deeper, but I haven't taken him over to interrogate and break him. Not right now. As I stretch, he moves, a little puppet on a string.

He has something old in his hand, some toy that his sister used to like, something he made her to play with. I look at the bad knots, the old wood, and throw it back into the room. A small noise as it clutters off.

"What was that?" The old snake asks from the other end of the hallway. She stays in the shadows. I can't see her. 

"I'm sorry," I say, with his voice, as his face fights to take the words right back and swallow them with his tongue. "I just...I thought about Atara."

"Your sister is far away, and you did the right thing when you abandoned her. She was confused, and she still is."

_Confused, is that what you both call it? I call it wretched. Wrong, like all the girls with Viper blood. The men are defected, the women are tainted._

He winces under the weight of my grip.

 _Open the door_ , my head tells him, and my grip leads him further. Closer.

"Careful, the whisper is still down there," Calpurnia stays away, still, and her voice is a warning. "Loren. Don't go downstairs."

"I want to make sure everything is locked," I let him say.

"No, you don't."

Wearing Loren's skin while standing beyond a closed-door like a beggar is not the worst I have done and no new sensation. But it gets bothersome when he keeps a certain distance. The closer I am, the easier it gets to assume control and keep it.

Loren wears a knife. It sits below his waistband and in theory, I could also make use of that.

The sound of a gun getting cocked makes Loren's body swirl around. On the other end of the hallway, hidden under a swinging cobweb, a plain black dressed old woman sneers.

"Good evening whisper." Her shriveled hands point the shotgun on her former favorite with precision.

"You caught on."

"Loren calls his sister Tara, and you'd have seen that if you were a little more thorough."

"It doesn't matter." Loren twists and winces again in my grip. The body is willing, the whining is all he can do. "Using him is easily just as ironic. He is sent here to bring you down anyway by the widow and the henchman."

"Oh, I know all about it," she answers. Her hand cradles the shotgun like a baby. "He cracked in the first night, and he told me he would do anything if it meant he stayed alive. He is scared of Deror, and I don't blame him for it. Get out of his head. I will shoot him otherwise. Straight up blow his leg away and make him useless."

Loren Viper wouldn't be able to produce the disgusted sound that leaves his throat. "Then I will take over you."

"I will just run before you can do that. If you haven't noticed. I'm good at that."

The connection to Loren flickers as I make him take a step forward.

Outside, my foot hits the door in frustration before I turn around and pick up the stone. Ungraceful. But necessary. I smash it against the window. Splinters rain in shards over the forsaken yard and the front of the house.

She still points the shotgun at him, but she doesn't even fire a warning shot. She waits and waits, then she turns around and runs. 

"Surrender yourself," Loren's voice says. I make him follow up and around.

Just as I enter the lower level of the house, I can hear them above me. 

The connection crackles again and rips for a moment. A shot echoes through the walls.

I sweep up around the front foyer, by the old dining room and whatever else they used to do. The furniture around me is hidden under white sheets like bodies preparing for a burial. Only the light of a weak moon and a single street lantern on the yard falls into the windows that are nor barred and boarded.

"I should make you fight each other," I yell. "Is that appropriate, Calpurnia Viper? You don't need to fear Deror, you need to fear ME!"

Another shot, and when I find my grip above the screaming minds, Loren is bruised and battered, bleeding all over a carpet. He still moves, even if his whole being screams in the semblance of pain. I ignore that and with a swing, his hands go straight toward her gun.

Her finger would linger over the trigger, but the shells in her fingers slip, the cartridges fall, no more shots for Calpurnia. 

Just as he dips toward her, I find her. And she is a slippery creature full of her own wrath. A late child, a lot of grudges, a lot of sullied ambitions. 

I breathe heavy when I finally walk up on their level. Sweat disentrigates my hair, cool. My sleeve sweeps it off.

Calpurnia's throat screams. It doesn't help her now that she is mine. Loren barely looks awake. Always takes the hits and never gets anything for it these days. It is what you deserve as a firstborn that gets everything by default, including parent's pride and vanity.

"Now that was something," I can't help myself from a grin. "Now shall we go off, Vipers? I have a transport waiting. And manacles, if you don't want to be willful."

With a gesture, I drag her body up. She stands shaky. The sweat spreads over my neck, my heart beats pounds heavier. I repeat the same with Loren while my hands clasp around Calpurnia's arm.

I make him hand over the knife, and the cold metal rests so softly over her throat that I could shave a single hair off. 

"They'll never respect you," Calpurnia spits out. "They're a slow spreading poison that destroys our family. They always did that, Adayne, Deror, Daliah, they will drag you down to your grave, whisper."

"Shh," I make and press the knife harder against her. Not enough to draw blood. But almost. For an old woman, she is not frail at all. "We'll have plenty time to talk later about your wretched little ideas. I'm sure that everyone agrees on that. _Sing like a bird,_ as you animosi would say."

Calpurnia rests in the manacles, and her face is contorted as she closes her eyes and accepts her fate. As the drive continues, I am just watching her drift off and rest my self.

Afterward, it is a travel by boat, and that'll take the better part of the night and day, even with the small size. 

It makes it easy to familiarize myself with more of their secrets before I hand them back over for a family reunion.

Loren is a pretty shallow one in all the blood and pain. He has a streak of the gray blood smeared below his nose, it starts to dry. The sheer proximity of sitting with me makes him squirm. It's deliciously easy to scare him.

"Will you kill me?"

"Not right now." I smile at him. "You failed your task."

"No." He dares to disagree but shudders back beside me. "My task was to stay with her under every circumstance. I was supposed to get her to trust me again. Lying to her would have been futile. And you also saw the other things I was supposed to do."

"I know about it."

_I know that you were supposed to make your sister's little play friend susceptible._

I don't mention that I was told to go quick and fast now. 

He tries to shrug. "She never liked me. And the boy. Well."

"The boy." I lean forward. He squeezes himself against the window in the cabin space. My thumb scratches over the blood below his nose. It flakes in crumbs. His nostrils flare in panic. "Let's use our time together and you tell me all about that. But just between the two of us."

* * *

It takes until the next night to reach the mansion in West Archeon. 

"You're not allowed anymore, your access has been revoked," the guard on the front door tells me. Their faces take in the soiled forms of the former solid leaders and heirs of this family. 

"You won't say that again, or you lose your trigger finger," I promise. 

Loren beside me shuffles forward, back and shoulders slumped. All the while the old woman stands tall in the manacles.

"Tell them I came back," he instructs the guard. 

Above the banisters and spirals leading up and down, the lot of them have gathered in their nightclothes. It means that most of them wear loose robes, and after this trip, I feel tempted to look casual as well. A long bath will do.

My wife has brought her guards around again too, even though that they aren't wearing their uniform jackets, they frame her lunatic cousin and his father. All their eyes stare at Loren.

"You're not welcome here at all, Samson," my father in law states. 

"Greetings Vipers!" I shout and drag Calpurnia's manacled form forward. "I brought you presents! Who wants to help me unwrap them?"

Now Loren is gone from their minds. 

The cane clinks to ends a shuddering whispered discussion between Hector and Daliah. 

"One night, as a guest," he complies. "And you'll not keep anything to yourself in the extraction from her brain."

**_Call yourself a friend for a while, Samson._ **

"Why not? I like to rummage in heads."

The rotten widow lets her personal guards take care of that. The big one, stoneskin, just grabs her by the connection in between the handcuffs and walks off. The smaller one is right behind. 

Calpurnia falls. He still drags her forward and she slides over the ground helpless now.

In this hallway, all the lights are on, and it is why I can follow their movements easy. And it is also why I see the blooming, sneering smile on my wife's face.

Most husbands would have brought their wives a valuable piece of clothing or a bit of jewelry. I bring my wife bloodied frames in manacles. And she likes it. 

What she doesn't know is that I have another of her weaknesses right in my mind now. 

I won't be anyone's _friend_ for too long.


	29. Elicitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (probably the last Viper chapter for now bc there are two or three Merandus and other parts still to elaborate on, sorry for the delay, my schedule is as fucked up as always.
> 
> Everyone still reading heyy thank you for your support, I kinda wished you would say something to tell me how I am doing, but I hope I get this done by the end of the year and you still like it readers. <3)

_elicitation_

_-to call forth or draw out (something, such as information or a response)_

_-to draw forth or bring out (something latent or potential)  
_

* * *

**_T_** he room is not made for interrogation. It is an empty old guest room dusted off, furniture put aside.

A few glass cages decorate the walls, akin to the Viper Pit, as they call it. Mostly, they are empty under the soft yellow shine of electricity running beyond the walls and unloading in the glass of the lightbulbs above. A few now have been filled.

Their bugs and scorpions are everywhere.

One of the scorpions now sits on my wife's small palm, and she hands it over to her father before stepping back inside the background to my right.

It's yellow and big.

I can barely stop my face from crinkling into a low line. It is as nasty and ugly as any of the creatures inside the glass wall, but intriguing. Because it is deadly and hidden behind a security lock. I don't care about scorpions and spiders more than I need to trample them usually. 

"Daliah likes the grey and black ones better," he explains."But I prefer this sort and the blue one over there. I added them to the Viper Pit a long time ago. Do you remember why, Calpurnia?"

The plastic cuffs cut deep into her flesh, the circulation cut off, and the missing grey blood makes her wrinkled skin sallow.

"You can't scare me," she hisses.

"Brave last words," the small, angry voice to my right mutters.

 _You'd know about brave last words_ , I think, recounting countless nights of needless denial and struggle.

My father in law gently puts the scorpion over her cheek. It doesn't sting. They're playing some game between animosi, fighting for control, and it could be amusing if it wasn't just a pale imitation of the abilities a whisper has. Far more primitive.

"Some types of spiders and scorpions provide treatment for my disease. Not perfect. Not at all. And with our resources concentrated on war effort and the crumbling fault in the money vaults and pockets, I only progress slowly on the subject. It could be too late in the end. But I keep buying time, so who knows? And who knows if the world won't burn down and we all fall into the abyss beneath Whitefire first either?"

"Poison as a cure." Fatalistic, dramatic. I take a step toward, pushing Daliah back. My fingers look too long and stark white against her black robe. "Let me cut to the interrogation."

He shakes his head slowly, disapproving. His hair is brightly drained from the black color at the short cut sides of the hair. "Scorpions have venom, Samson, you should know the difference by now. And patience. Give me a moment."

The stinger slings forward, a silent fight lost, and it buries beneath her skin. The convulsion of muscles and more greying follows, and where one part of her is sallow, the other turns purple and grey. Sweat streams over her face. Behind me, Loren and a few others turn their heads.

The culprit still handling the scorpion and his daughter just stare at their relative in the middle of the room. It's cruel, barbaric. It could be entertaining if it doesn't take on too long to get to my part of the job.

Without the cane, the old Viper needs to lean over the chair in a groan. Not that the older woman can do much to stop him from coming too close. The lights above her head flicker, ticking away scared silent seconds. The room is a hushed silence. 

"Doesn't feel so nice to be locked, is it?" He asks her. "I imagine you never had that happen to you. Now don't worry, it won't kill you, I wouldn't do that yet. I have antidotes for them. You know how well stocked we are. See it as a lesson. You should have not taken your time to hide after our takeover."

Her leg twitches uncontrollable, her jaw slacks in a notion of wordless frozen pain. It is everywhere drawn over her old wrinkled figure.

By now, one-half of the observers are twitching and shivering with anticipation while the other half is uninterested to undisputable disgusted and guilty in their turned heads and long breaths.

"Now, Samson, if you may."

I rub my hands together, palms resting against each other.

"With pleasure." I take my cue, and it's as easy as opening a door. I don't turn the knob, though. I splinter the wood, I burn the way behind me. I twist through her head and I take what I want.

* * *

A few hours later, the job is done. It's not my first time and not my last. My head pounds and burns though, a slight headache from the constant attention I have to pay. I feel it in my brow when I step outside the shower, under the water dripping down my skin. The mirror proves me right. The stubble comes back again after the last few days, a shadow over my cheekbone- time to quickly get rid of it again. Shaving off hair is like shaving off resistance. It's a process to be repeated before it grows too big and irritating. Before it obscures the usually accentuated parts of the system or skin.

My eyes don't look quite as awake as I want them to. A little drowsy from the combat, the travel, the interrogation of two of the Vipers. I squint at the narrow reflection of my body.

My skin looks almost as sallow as the scorpion stained poisoned one of the old woman. At least the rest of my body is in flawless condition. Not one bruise, not one scratch, not one scar. I take a moment to make sure and stretch my lean body, shoulders cracking once. I've never been quite the type of warrior build. Not as many muscles, not as bulky as some of the lower ones. I don't need to be fully pinched in muscles when I am perfectly capable of murdering them with a snap of my hand and the break of their inner locks.

It feels only fair if I get to take a resting day after this interrogation. Even if my body feels tired though, my mind feels invigorated by finishing this off now. Quick and fast, don't get greedy. 

The present of Calpurnia has lowered the hostility a little.

I wander back to the guest room and none of the feet sweeping on many legs through the house stop me.

Instead of a suit, I dress in loose blue robes, casual almost, no gloves, but they are soft and still look less bland than what most of the people around me sport. Not quite at the level of pathos a crown of wasps and capes. Next to the moth in the jar, between some shirts, I find the paper I have been waiting to use, and

Everyone is busy and on the go. The ones that aren't occupied by Calpurnia still in their possession, that is.

There was some talk about offering her up to disappear, either so her bodyparts appear disassembled and scattered in a river bed, or for the dogs to feast, some may want to lock her up. Or have her vanish.

I have everything I need from her mind, so I don't care at all. She and Loren have given me some direct and indirect feed that will prove viable.

It's nice to know that despite her sudden meekness, I also have some control back over the unloved wife in the house that isn't mine. Adayne has used the chance to sneak around, and she has provided me with some other things in the past.

A black and blue bug runs along the floorboards between the table, horned, and shining. It disappears behind a leg of an empty chair. My wife is alone with her goey bowl of breakfast, some sort of slimy oatmeal with a few lonely apples screaming inside it.

Her guards stand by, but no dogs.

"I don't know what I find more ridiculous." She eyes my clothes. "This or blue leather."

My face is unmoving and my eyes don't blink at the jab. I don't take fashion statements from a woman that either wears spiders or uniforms these days.

Her face is a puzzle of scars that make her hideous in any other eye. In the morning light the scars disfigure her and leave her pale.

My hand shoos off into the direction of the silent guards that follow my wife everywhere, seated there by my cousin. "Leave us alone."

The guards don't move. Daliah scoops her spoon up excruciatingly slow, putting it below the scar that splits her upper lip into two. 

"Asher, Bryce, wait outside the door," she tells them, and they finally move. "You're ruining my breakfast, dear husband."

The food will turn foul in her mouth fast enough. The small bug still jitters before the sole of my shoe.

My dark blue sleeve sways a little when I point down. "Is that yours?"

She still presses the spoon into her mouth and licks it once, greyish brown eyes in the light pointed toward my feet. "No."

I slowly let my foot sink on it, crashing the bug between the floorboard and the sole of my shoe.

My words could be a boot breaking a chitin armor as well.

"Your regret is bringing you down again."

She stares at the remains of the bug, puts her spoon into the bowl, eats another scoop of her breakfast. She takes her time chewing. I move my jaw impatient. This is vexing. But I have the upper hand.

"What does that mean?" She finally asks.

"It means I know about your little secret. A letter by a red boy. What was his name again? Oh, wait. I can just look." I pull out the crumpled paper from my pocket. "Harris Marcher, turned fifteen years old a few days after the letter arrived. And by now. Either dead or shortly. Fitting name. Marching to his grave."

A spoon flies over the ground in a sliver of metal thuds. Her frame leaps upward, gripping at the paper like a dog at a bone. I let her pull at it for a moment, barely in reach, before the game gets boring and I let go.

She presses the paper against her chest, sitting down again.

"So they conscripted him."

I feel my face twist into a smile while I nod. "He's in good company. A contingent of child soldiers. I can walk you through the numbers."

"How do you know the numbers?"

"I told you." Benevolent, I stretch my arms out, even with a table between us, she will always be tiny and desperately small in her attempts to look bigger. "I have been working on keeping the system in check, so the cogs turn, and the machinery works. Military figures, possible weak spots. Sometimes red servants that need to be removed." It's a little boasting, but I deserve to boast from time to time. She thinks she can boast about her endeavors and titles, she is nothing.

You can't keep secrets from someone that lives in your head and thoughts.

I'm in everyone's heads and receive mail and transmissions monitored in slices. I can almost go everywhere in the palace. Who is the queen again?

She could know about it if she wasn't off to catch and hunt.

"This time," I tell her in a hushed voice. "No one will speak condolences to you and give you a medal. He is nothing. He'll be a record staining the list of deceased red soldiers."

If we are pale, now she turns colorless behind the hard face. "Where will they be stationed? They're barely in training, they wouldn't be- it'd be a waste of resources-"

She doesn't get to speak until the end. I break into her bit by bit, removing her safety walls and her nets, her memories are worthless, but the pain inside them, and the lost purposes, they are real, and they hurt her.

"Right at the front line. Down the ashlands. In the choke. I wonder if it'll be a grenade too for him. Or just a bullet." I don't need to be in her head to see her snapping mental images of empty coffins and military frames, corpses. I still do it now. She still presses the letter against her chest. "And off they go, playing good soldiers. Because of this insolence and disturbance in the system. But here is an offer, Daliah."

Not the first time someone has said that. Still. I'll try to be civil, for a moment.

"I'm listening."

"Surrender." If words are food, this one would almost be my favorite dessert. They are as delicious as fear. They are submission. They are another victory. "Hand yourself and everything over. Stop fighting me. You can't win. Tell them to stop resisting me. I can be a friend. You saw it last night. I'll have a swift arrangement made with our Queen or with her son. You can have that stupid creature back as a pet. You like your pets so much."

"I could just talk to him myself. We'll be spending some time together soon."

Deliberately and with glee, I smile at her. "No, you can't. You'll be gone to collect new bloods by the end of the day for the prison cells and repurposing the useful. And you leave your family alone with me."

She doesn't take my provocation and bait this time.

"Repurposing?" Her lips mouth.

Her brain hangs on that one word and reforms it to a conclusion.

_That was why the Captain said they made accommodations for Elara. She is staying in Corros. I don't bring them in to make them rot or to starve them to death. They want to repurpose them. For an army._

I have nothing to bluff, I may as well be blunt about the purpose. She has already been to the prison. She knows what she can gather about new bloods or anything connected to it. I don't need to play elusive anymore for the sake of keeping her in check. I am just tight and shut off about the things that do not concern her. "What else are they good for but fighting? They're just another asset. They're like your pets. Or what you are to me. Without the hassle and struggle."

The paper crinkles on her chest over her blank black jacket.

"I give you until your departure." My eyes wander to the ticking clock that shows the time drool by in drunken staggering seconds. "Midday. After that. I will start to break your family. One every day. I won't be subtle about it. Everyone will see. But no one will say anything. Just like they saw you and didn't dare to speak."

"They will never surrender to you. It's as asinine as Maven Calore and his obsession to get the lightning girl. He had an interceptor for her ability in Harbor Bay, but he wasted his time burning himself into her, instead of just taking her prisoner. And that letter. Well. You're all the same to me in your weird games."

Oh yes. That letter. It was a silent ultimatum appealing from a personal standpoint, but it was also a meager ugly love letter from a boy to a girl in his own way. It was embarrassing or important enough for him to keep me quiet about it that he gave me the idea to care for the obsolete Viper.

I squeeze my mouth shut, and my eyebrows are the only sign of reaction, a sudden urge to oush the thoughts together with them.

You could say we share some traits for acquiring possessions. Blood draws lines in the sand and educates you in a certain way, after all. But whatever he wants, he is weak alone, he needs to be strung up and guided. I am not. And I have no personal inquiries about my wife beyond her usefulness. I will never get meek and willfully for her, or show mercy. A fight to win, a fight to get prized as a victor, and applause, that's where it is at. Money, power, fame, control.

"I'm not very patient anymore." This isn't me offering temporary release like the night she caught me off guard with her snakes. Or the way she evaded me using her relatives as shields. "Take your pick fast."

Her eyes are downcast, her shoulders slump. "Fine."

"Does that mean you accept?"

"You'll die alone and no one will know your name for abusing your wife."

"Do you accept?" I repeat.

The silence is filled with an unwelcome scraping noise above and shrieks. A discussion and another ultimatum, another decision made at the same time for another fate.

She will fold in. Her scars twitch and her black and blue uniform is baggy like a sack over her form when she leans over.

She will fold in and I-

"No." She shrugs. "Kill him yourself if you want to. I don't take any more deals. You betray me for your own good. Just the same as Maven. Just kill the poor child now and spare him the horrors of war."

An unwelcome spark glazes over my ribcage in a frustrated hiss before I round up the table. "Maybe I will. You made your choice."

Her skin convulses and her body flinches like I stung her too. I still take her fingers and lift her hand. It's warm and soft, with short clean nails and extremely white knuckles. She holds on to my hand so tight she presses it together, digging into my skin like I live in hers.

"I was told that I have to live with the decisions I make," she mutters. We push at each others arms until I win and bend it back. A gesture that looks like I offer her a dance and lead. 


	30. Virtue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I restrung some family trees here and there from the first draft. Not too many chapters left. Can't say for sure, it fluctuates, you know me, but, I mean, how can I not write a chapter about childhating and family issues hey, it's cool. This part will be rewritten and revised anyway the same as the first later Disclaimer: I, the author, actually like children. But Samson is more like  
> https://youtu.be/U6Jogncx9Hk
> 
> Anyway after I let that out, let's jump into the chapter.

_virtue  
_

_-conformity to a standard of right_

_-a particular moral excellence_

_-a commendable quality or trait_

* * *

**_F_** rustration is an ugly feeling that stows up like water behind a dam. I know my deal about it. I wish I wouldn't. But the good thing is that when the dam breaks and you drown everyone, you're left in a soaking satisfaction.

The only thing soaking me now is a soft rainfall when I turn away from the stairs to the square still decorated with the big banners.

My neck cracks when I turn myself to look upwards and blink inside the slight rain shower. I have had the displeasure of watching another unfolding act at the Viper mansion as well as exclusions from meetings in Whitefire, and with my cousin and the Samos girl in and out the city, watching him to keep the word and order of Elara is harsh. He has returned again by now, but the processes are blurred and the schedules tightly knit. They come and leave, from video loops and news articles about inspections, and then there is also the whole whirling deal of Corros. It brews now, that so many days and hours have passed without the rebels caught and the whole country spread in search parties as well as preparations to instill more force inside the bigger cities.

Elara hasn't returned except for one short day, now she won't for another while. She has made herself a nest in that place, as it seems, and I don't blame her. If I could, I would help repurposing. I suggested sending the lunatic Viper for research assistance, he is terribly interested in genetics, albeit of lower lifeforms. But in the end, as always, words are void from me to that boring minion Hector.

Ultimatums sewed, I'll start my own reconditioning soon anyway. Right here, right now, I will keep that promise. It is comparable to the wedding vow I had to make, that pledge that means nothing but binding houses together for profit. I just need days to break them apart. A perfect opportunity opens up when my wife is frantic over being separated from her favorite dog cousin Samos, because he is staying at Corros the next days too.

I decide to take a stroll and a visit to my own home. I'm from the capital, I never had the displeasure to seep through provinces and mud before. I was free to go wherever I pleased. That's still a personal privilege. And imagine where I can go after I have finally taken over another house and get my personal values repaid. 

The first thing I notice in the yard,as the rain has retreated behind growling clouds is the silence. No animals pester me. I take a long breath of the wet air.

There used to be a tree in the middle of the yard when I was young. It has been brought down and broken off by now, and no orange autumn color fills the ground with leaves that are obnoxious to clean up. Now, it's all flat stones that meet the glass dressed facade of the mansion. Loose, small stones scrape below my feet.

I enjoy staring at the flawless dressed house and the kept yard. Until screeching and crying sounds drift over and I realize that the house has something almost worse than animals running around.

"I don't want to! I will make you hit yourself if you don't let me go! I don't want to, want to, want to!"

It's shrill, it's unpleasant, and it's four years old and throws a temper tantrum for everyone to see, screeching in sounds that make even the animals in the animosi mansion are docile against it.

"My dear, if you want to lie in the mud, it's your decision." My mother's voice is the same unwavering noise as always. A trained, facilitated voice. "If you can take the consequences. We talked about it. Your father never rolled in the mud because he didn't get what he wanted."

He's the older one, he didn't have to roll in any mud to achieve what he begged for. I refrain from saying that and continue to act as if I stare upward pondering about the house. But the wailing doesn't stop behind me, and now another noise breaks in it, another crying, but less articulated and even more pitched.

Dressed in dwindling dark blue and a strange mix of white and black flickers, my mother rounds around behind me to greet me, only for a moment letting go of the boy on the ground.

Her mouth is not touching my skin, just the air as she breathes a small, useless kiss on my cheek. Up close, her habits have carved through her skin in small ripples of folds around her mouthline and nose, but she keeps some maintenance on herself. Not too much, like others in her age group, but enough to be presentable.

"I don't have much time for you."

I'm used to that, and I don't ask for much. So I just accept the machinations of a mother pretending to care for her son and watch her handle the little brat of a grandson playing dead on the ground and the baby that is being pushed by the silent figure of yet another nanny or governess in the back.

"I can see that."

My voice kicks off a chain reaction. It makes my nephew sit up abruptly, bright blond hair broken in a dirty mess, jacket stained with something that could be debris or just food that stains. My mother blinks unnerved. The screeching in the wheeled carrier breaks up again, and the high ptuched sound pierces inside my brain like a bullet.

His eyes make me want to kick him, from the big noisiness behind it, to the annoyance in the jumping and fidgeting. His pale skin is discolored in the rest of the tantrum . He jumps and rolls and runs forward, still avoiding my mother or the other people responsible for him. Something in my mouth is sour and tastes bad. I swallow on it to try and not show my dislike too much.

I _hate_ children. I can't help hating them and I don't want to. I hate this one even more because I need to pretend I don't.

"Uncle, you're back- where were you-what are you doing-they try to make me go inside-can we play something, grandmother says that I can't- can weeee-"

The systemic and a little tired voice of my mother pipes in from beside. "Uncle Samson isn't staying, Sol. Just leave him be."

"No, it's fine." I hold my hands behind my back tightly to not reach out in any form of agression or frustration. "How about you go inside and hide?"

His mouth breaks into a silent enourmous round shape, the leaping gets stronger. "Hide and Seek? But no cheating!"

"I would never." I finally lose the clasping of my hands from behind my back. Givbe him a wave." Now go. I come and find you. But you aren't allowed to leave. Make no sound."

And with that, he's running off.

My mother knows I have no intention of searching, she cracks me an equally frustrated look behind her indifference. "Now I have to make guards and servants comb through the whole house if you or your father don't help me out. "

I shrug. "I have other problems to bother about than the little monster. That's your job. I never wanted anything to do with children."

"Yes. I remember." She blows away a strand of her immatriculate pulled back hair that has tangled in her small earring, a metal string folded in half, bound in bright silver stones. "No one wants to implore you, but your father has had a few words after the dinner with you." She is half in thought and half ducking behind her own predictability for the future. She checks that I won't harm her. "It's been over almost two months since you married Viper, and he says you need to start thinking about the future."

"I have, Vera."

She hates it when I use her first name, but in regards of my age, it feels fitting.

"I know. I know you have, in your own strange way, and I always supported your life choices. I wouldn't stress it if we weren't on the brink of..well." She tugs at her own sleeves to reform a more coherent image. "Procreation isn't about love or passion, and we both know that, you wouldn't be here if it was. Just take whoever you want with you, men, women, I don't care, just get it done, Samson, as long as your wife is still able to have a child, and stop this feud with your father, I am tired of standing between my sons and husband."

I look at the crested high windows in the sleek building. "Where are they?"

"Your father?" Her bright eyes blink upwards too. She's a tall woman, even now she's just as tall as me without heavy heels. "Inside. Diplomacy with a mind reader is intimidating others, he thinks it is funny, oh you know him."

At least that hasn't changed.

"He has been set on dealing with the remaining defiance on some of the other houses. Mainly, that is, Anabel Lerolan and the remains of theirs. Your brother too."

The ones that aren't dead and gone, I think, crossing my arms. The ones that aren't in the cells that the silver traitors occupy. Removing Ara or anyone else in the first nights was easier than expected, now they are not so easily removed. The sun shooting comes to mind, with the overproduced dramatic message of Lerolan's body on a lance. His dead children too. And since she is the mother of the dead king and the grandmother of current ones. As well as the older one on the run.

I've felt quite satisfied remembering the broken image at the bowl, before the execution went wrong. Humilation for Tiberias Calore. After all those years of having to listen to people praising him in their heads around me and in public. It's tiring of hearing something like that.

My mother looks at the inside of the baby carrier with some hawkish interest before giving a signal with her hand.

"Your brother is trying to administer some form of function in the south, and he says the governor is less than pleased to have him push his head in all their secrets. Ester is still wailing in her misery because she lost her brother in Naercy, fried and frizzled by the lightning girl, so here I stand, and I need to take care of the children."

And all the while she says that the quaking, wailing sounds make me want to smother the child inside the blankets and carrier. Vera Eagrie makes a hushed motion before the true caretaker of the child wheels the noise and the squirming thing inside away.

She takes my arm, both of our hands are cold to the touch, and following the quaking, I am led inside. "I put your armor inside a new case, since you won't need it the next months. It looks nice in your room."

She holds my arm loosely beneath the robes. The blue of our clothes differs in one shade with herself wearing a ring with a brightly colored eye and a smaller band with a crystalline stone.

"I have been promised so much," I tell her.

"Patience, they say, is a virtue, my sweet son." She is a bad liar. And an indifferent one. I'm not a peacekeeper. Who knows that better than the women that raised me to what I am today?

"Do you think you are the first to tell me?" I let out a mocking breath.

She clicks her tongue once. "Frankly, I'm not sure what we are patient for, and it is tiring to know short blinks of the future but never help out to see the longer con. It is trusting you're all capable. But I raised you, and your brother, so I won't complain as long as you don't bring scandals and shame home."

I smile at her, a genuine expression of agreement. "Because you're a good woman."


	31. Uproar

_uproar_

_-a state of commotion, excitement, or violent disturbance_

* * *

**_Q_** uick and swift is how coups are carried out.

Quick and swift is how you break an arm.

It is how you cut out an eye or a tongue or how you punish someone that has been pestering your world with the insistence of an annoying justice.

Quick and swift , the last weeks have passed. Frustrating and slow for me, forced to hold my feet still.

Commanded by a boy, shoved by noble advisors and financiers that think they stand above being removed.

They hold their hands over their children and that is just as frustrating as my wife being a frigid, doomed creature denying me.

Quick and swift, now that is a nice sentiment when you can't draw a spectacle out. Languid suffering is not to be underwritten in joy.

At least the promises still stand. Right now I may be watching in some distance. But imagine the victory that reconditioning the rats my wife and the others catch and bring to Corros will yield.

Reconditioning needs apt people to execute. If there's one thing I am good at, it is pure control. I should be there right now, even if the capital is as cozy as ever.

That's the horror of my days. I am out of patience.

Elara knows that. She reinforces any promises that she makes as she takes turns in Corros and behind the throne.

"The next turn is ours," she promises me. "I'll be forever grateful for your sharp eye and your hands."

I am not prone to flattery. But the exchanges go smooth and I want to believe that. I need to.

Violence is power. Force is power. Aren't we good at it? We are surperior. Of course we win.

While I sit on dry land, my wife walks and travels, and her family follows her. They scurry away like the bugs they are whenever she backs off with her guards.

She takes the idiot and the lunatic with her too. They're a unit of black with dogs in harnesses and rifles on their side. The little bug widow herself proceeds to sneer at me while I watch them pack off, but she can't stop herself from showing off her latest gift in some weak threat.

The metal stick is as long as her arm up to her elbow.

"I was told I shouldn't always expect to hit with a knife."

"Did you ever hit anything?"

With a shake of her hand, the Baton unfolds , a stick as long as a sword, a strong bit of lead , iron, rubber. Her fingers swirl the baton around.

One button push and it retracts.

"I wonder if it hurts more than being cut." Her eyes try to look hostile.

"Test it on the newbloods you drag to the prison or execute."  
And just to fuel her compromised guilt, I add: "A child's head should get smashed easily."

"I do not think there will be children on any of my stops."

"Another Harbor Bay?" I ask, taunting her about her loss and her reappearing fault at catching anything but hot air.

She doesn't tell me things willingly. Her fingers want to unfurl the baton again, fidgeting. I only cross my arms while I nestle inside her thoughts.

"Villages first. Transports," her mouth says. _Two days from now,_ _Pitarus_ _. Another trap for the rebels._

 _Watch out for the declaration of Maven_ _Calore_ _speaking his condolences about the death of Lerolan at the ball. In truth, we are on the other end of_ _Norta_ _. Just so we can spring a_ _better_ _trap than the last times._

The children swim between us, the small particles of pity and laughter at the massacre at the titulated sun shooting.

Another attempt. I can almost see her sniffing behind my cousin, and his interest never tastes that good for things that do not belong to him. Some things are mine, even if he wears a crown and I don't.

Let's hope they catch something this time.

* * *

No one booms over the success of capturing rebels in Pitarus.

Intelligence I catch and fish off screaming clouds of thoughts tells me nothing but failed missions and transported and dead rats.

I retract myself to not just finally take over everything in a coup of my own.

Right at this moment, the capital is empty. Elara is in Corros, her son is on the prowl under the guise of travelling around landmarks and condolences.

They rustle and frown on their seats in the council room, and half of them lick Volo Samos heels. I wish I could crack that head. And his son. But he is also in Corros.

The next move is another retaliation strike.

Military formations and information bores me. But this is a war in a pincher of a triangle. Internal, and forever with the Lakelanders.

I stay with my parents. If only because the scared Vipers are still scattered or hide in between dogs.

My mother wasn't lying about putting the armor inside a case.

The blue tinted steel has something archaic, bloodthirsty. It has seen silver blood being splattered into dust of an arena.

Never beaten. Never lost.

We shall not start that now. I am undeniable and I am also inevitable.

I see my face in the glass, stare at the blue gleam and wonder when I will wear it again.

My mother finds me staring at the glass encasing the pieces. Light seeps in through small curtains. Everything in the house is minimalistic and clear in bright colors.

"Come with me now," she tells me.

"I don't have time for this," I explain to her. Can a man not have one last day in peace from blaring animals, children and incompetence?

"You need to see it." Her face is fearful. It is devoid of blood. Her head is a wound out block of panic. I don't cut into it to find out why. She turns away and stalks down the hallway, dress fluttering.

I follow, if only to see what scares a woman married to a mind reader. Something only an Eye has already seen. Something coming harshly. Next to my fathers broad study, they stand like broken bones in a leg, pale figures with eyes flying over the wall.

No greetings. I don't look at them.  
Bathed in red, the stupid red sun of the scarlet guard runs over the screen. Irritation rises in my muscles.

"It's a broadcast."

"It just started," my mother answers hushed. "They took over from a repeated speech. At first it just stopped. I thought it would be wise to be together."

My father doesn't answer the obvious assessment. His finger smoothes over his moustache.

I don't see the sense in gathering together if we have a retaliation strike ahead. I don't see anything valuable to discuss right here if our most powerful family member is away from the capital now.

The camera lingers with a static flicker that makes clear this broadcast is a hijacked one, by rebels, by whoever is still left to revolt in a scream. Concrete ground. Nothing to identify.

My father smoothes over his face once more. I cross my arms. My mother , the eye, makes a low sound that sounds like choking shock.

"Both of you need to stay calm," she says, voice of reason because whatever she just has witnessed in the near future behind the red seal is rampant and poisoned enough to stir both me and my father.

"After weeks of hiding the rats come out," my father mutters. "Little bastards and bitches. Thinking they can-"

"Shhh," my mother tries to cool it off. "I know. We all know, my love."

With a fling the image steadies. It steadies on a corpse. Burned and maimed, but recognizable.

For a moment it feels like someone has pulled the rug from under ny feet to watch me stumble. It's the physical reaction of rigid staring. I am incapable of not staring at the crime scene that's desecrating the screen. I refuse to look away from the defiled corpse.

Elara is bare on the screen in death. No valor and respect. Her face is a twisted, contorted mask of rigor mortis, a forever frozen form of pain. Her hair is usually clean pulled back in a knot , or flowing in a crown. It's burned except a few strands that have curled in some form of heat. The color has changed from bright blonde to dirt streaked.

I feel everything shrieking in my ribcage. My blood starts to pump so heavy in my ears I can't hear anything. Only the low muttering on the screen and the chattering that subsides beside me.

The golden son, the older prince that has been slandered. The murderer and blood traitor. Nowwhere to be seen. Just the wretched girl declaring victory. Calling the strike tomorrow a void and empty plan. Because there is no prison to gather up and the little rebels have already ruined and emptied it. They have clutched their dirty paws around things that don't belong to them. They have killed one of ours. The one that mattered.

 _Patience Samson, patience, don't get greedy_.

Everything falls apart.

My years of serving. Of killing. Of keeping secrets. Of helping to operate the little cogs in the machinery. It has evaporated with Elaras life leaving her body.

Not fire has defiled her. This is not the work of a burner and their flames. This has struck in something electric and cackling.

And when I see a girl with brown hair and the most ordinary face that has ever plastered the news, wanted poster and was in everyones mind , I can identify it.

Lightning.

I only stare.

I don't even blink.

Right now. I burn the wretched red-blooded face into my being. My blood is cold. It's just a promise of persona fun when she's hanging on a wired cuff to be interrogated.

A butcher, I was called. A flattering thing. A terrifying promise. One I always deliver.

My eyeballs dry out the more I force myself to look. At that girl. At the corpse. At the rallying around.

My muscles tense. My head snaps away to look back to my parents.

"I will demand the girl's head, right now. I will let them-"

"You won't do anything like it," my father hisses. His mind cuts through me in a swift serrated move, surprising. "Everyone already wanted Mare Barrow's head before. What's your whining going to do?"

He holds me in place and it doesn't quench my anger it fuels it.

One word is enough to insult him. I press it out between my tongue and the cracks of my perfect straight teeth.

"Coward."

"You will not demand anything. We need to lie low."

"We have been lying low too long."  
I answer with a push of my own. He unlocks me. Despite any protest I grit my teeth and tower over my father. "This is a death sentence. This is a final declaration. The vessel that's her son will have to act on it."

Act on it. And need someone new to latch unto...someone new to act out the codependance a broken husk formed to perfection in precise hands of a whisper needs...

My anger is brimming in a cascade but something else is implanted in the back of my brain. Something grows.

"Where are you going?"she asks. Still panicking.

"I am going to Whitefire."

I don't stop to walk in a flurry of black and blue.

"You heard what-"

"Someone needs to show presence. If he doesn't do it, I will. Do you want us to be considered cowering after this? Do you think Lerolan, Iral , Samos, all of them, even the Vipers, hide now?"

Her hand falters.

_Can you keep a secret, Samson?_   
_I am going to be queen. It is just a matter of time._

"She was the queen," I yell at her. My voice folds through the space between us. I want to shake my mother and I want to do worse to the rest of the world. I will strangle them all and break their necks. I will drench the world in red and silver blood.

"The Queen of Norta!" I roar. "And they put her on the ground like a dead animal, they kick and taunt and mock."

This is not just about our system. Not just about their revolt. It is a personal insult.

I inhale deeply through my flaring nostrils.

"The girl called Elara's son, the one on the throne, a monster and a liar. What do you think they call us behind our backs? What do you think they will call me and your grandchildren? I will not tolerate a loss! Silver don't lose. _Merandus do not lose! We win!_ "

Unfillfulled anger doesn't cool off to disappear. It buries in my body cold.

Everything lies empty. Everything in the capital breathes in the insults and promises.

A dead road.

A dead queen.

But count on the slime and dirt that is the council members and military advisors, the noble heads of the country to still be around Whitefire.

Inside here, it is still quiet but not empty. They all hang around. The little spies. The big names and proclaimed warriors.

"You can't enter," a muffled voice behind me states.

Guards and sentinels.

"I can't what?" I ask and pour my anger into my body, standing taller than most of them. They are avoiding to look at my face. Mimics and Silks and Magnetrons, Tyros , Iral, Samos. Always pestering me. And one of the masked sentinels wields green and black animos colors beside his gun.

"An emergency meeting has been processing and is about to conclude."

"My wife is in there." It feels bitter and makes me more angry than ever to say that. "Lady Daliah Viper."

The sentinel in Viper colors shrugs and cringes.

"Even if she was. We will not let you in. We have orders to keep everyone besides designated administration out of the tract and the king's private rooms."

That little leech. Is he here? She is dead for less than a day and he already issued a ban. Against his own family. Against me. That was his first action? Or is this the flex of another of those cronies?

Something else buries inside with the quick notion of a slap.

"Is my wife a designated member of the administration?"

They aren't very compliant. In the past they at least didn't bother me. They were Elara's , she held her hand open and they came by in subservience.

"That is not an information we have or that we have to share."

Their guns are cocked. Their stance is one of fight. It is no use to take them down. They are worth nothing.

"I will be back," I promise the masked face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I have lost my computer. This is a recovered draft from my cloud. Not in writing mood but we need to progress. Maybe I will actually write something next month again lol


	32. Shape

_shape_

_\- the visible makeup characteristic of a particular item or kind of item_

_\- the appearance of the body as distinguished from that of the face : figure_

_\- assumed appearance : guise_

* * *

_Daliah_

**_E_** verything in the world has faded and died.

The trees are bare skeletons, the few remaining leaves are brown and orange. The muddy color fills my vision in the grey orifice of the sky, and I stare at a few scattered doves that sit silently in a huddle of the rotting, decomposing leaves, scavenging the ground for any kind of crumb.

Runt watches them very closely out of her yellow eyes, shifting in her black harness beneath my hip, and if it wasn't for her excellent manners and training, she would snatch one of them between her teeth to swallow it. One Ear is less focused on the birds. He has his nose on the ground, relentlessly taking in the smells, curious as only a creature with such a reliable nose can be.

The streets of Pitarus are empty. Not suspiciously so. More so in a gathering uncertainty and fear that blows in a trail of cold autumn air down the control center up to the squares and closed shutters. On the tree, over the doves, in the small distance, swaying in the wind there is a single sentinel dragging a corpse away. As much dead and bare as the trees. Blue and grey scatters across the skin, and brown crusted blood has dried on the hem of shirt. They leave no trail of blood, only a few scented trails visible only in footprints no human can see.

4 new bloods. 1 dead. 3 in captivity ready for transport.  
By now, I am efficiently terrifying at my job.

_At least no children this time._

The sheer thought the images of gunshots, blood and a baby screaming well up inside my brain. Runt lifts her grey head up , away from the doves. She growls low and warning , feeling me tense up beneath my coat and weaponry. Her chaps lift and her teeth glitter dangerously. One Ear whines, head beside my other leg.

"Shh." I lift my hand flat, a gesture of control in clipped nails and clammy palms beneath fabric. "Back on track."

Both of them push their bodies down, waiting, tense.

They hold their heads into the air and trail for me, wet noses moving at a brisk pace.

Up above me in the roofs, Loren's head appears once, but he keeps distance, just like the others.  
Everyone is combing through the streets, I know that I am far from alone. The pinhead big earpiece, cable and radio prove it.

We are patroling.

At the side of my clammy hand, the baton waits to be unfurled. 

We back away from the tree, from the corpse, we creep around a silent corner in a city that feels foreign to me, a strange whiff of disattachment. My dogs blink, ears shifting , noses taking in the scents. They have both been on the road with me everyday, and their bodies are the only warm thing. They are alive, and when I feel my mind extend to brush over their consciousness, they soothe me.

A sound in my earpiece clicks alive.

"Status update," the voice rattles. I wish it was one of my cousins. But Ptolemus is at Corros. And I am sure we will all reunite there soon. Evangeline included. "Viper One?"

My answer is short and just as clipped. "Nothing in the perimeter."

"Report back after a sweep."

"Understood." I swallow. But it isn't like I have a chance to disagree now, and it isn't as if I don't know that next time, the voice in my ear will be much more familiar. I survive by acting obedient and conforming sometimes. Nothing new here. And I still want my piece of meat to claim. My scars are the sole reminder. We lick our lips and hope it happens now. After missing the core of them, loosing them, again and again, my scars prick and itch to get my hands on one of them.

And then silence returns with another click.

The security center is the only bright building. The grey exterior reminds me of Corros prison. It is an unwelcome but fitting comparison. This one here though is not a secret. And the people patroling inside and on the road are well aware of the possiblity of an attack.

No one is here. And everything is in quiet disarray.

I return to Bryce and Asher on the back of the fence that surrounds a part of the Security center. They look weary and about as excited as always. On my eyesight, Bryce makes a face before straightening himself. His black hair and narrow eyes are flat on his head. Asher reacts the same but he doesn't make a face while he searches for a sign of disturbance behind the fence. He reaches over me like a rocky cliff.

"The sentinels are still around. Nothing."

His report is unnecessary.

"Hadrien has used the chance to get all kinds of papers and prints about the population out of the center's system."

I wrinkle my nose. He's in trouble already. I told him to be careful. The dogs growl low beneath our sides. "Did anyone notice?"

Asher shrugs. "They were busy with me leaving my post and talking over radio to the king."

"Where is he now?"

Bryce points backward.

"If you can, make sure no one hurts him for his insubordination," I mutter. "Keep in the back. If they come up here, nail them down."

We move back to patrol for one more sweep. The dogs take the lead, sniffing.

The corpse is gone. The dogs still smell the blood. But then. Something else catches our attention.

One Ear shifts over the ground again before he lifts his head and barks. A sharp, alarming huff.

A crow sails over one rooftop. It circles once on the outskirts before disappearing. 

"Well, hello there," I whisper.

My body pumps blood hefty and heavy through my veins.

Someone is there.

"Viper One here." I push the words into the air, and they get caught on to be transferred to someone away.

My fingers slide over a wall to taste the swinging vibrations, a thousand feet beside the walls swing in eerie motion for my sense to access the sensation.

My earpiece scrapes inside the shell, presses a wire against my collar. When it goes on a transmission this time, it is exactly who I expect.

"Tell me you have good news, Lady Viper."

Just like the spider talks, I can't jump into tangents while I hunt and patrol. But unlike the spider talks I can at least report something.

"Movement. Follow a trail. More than one. Move east trees. Tell your sentinels to follow up. Our guests just arrived."

Maven's only answer is a breath, but the anticipation in it is palpable enough. In the background I can hear his voice giving some notice to someone.

"Let's hope you get to use the fancy interceptor right this time, your Highness," I snipe before I stop myself.

My hand on the wall is surrounded by thousands of black bodies, a pulsing wall that threatens to eat everything.

"Viper Two," I push into the earpiece, and above me a bird screeches. "They're coming."

He whispers back. "I see two."

Only two? That can't be right. This is supposed to be the day we catch them all. Calore, the Barrows, Farley.

Is this a trap or trick of their own devices? They have a jumper. If they manage to sneak past...

The dogs press down below me. Their noses pick up faint scents of sweating bodies. Runt turns her ears in the direction as I lay low beside the control center.

To my left, three masked sentinels sneak up silently. One was the man that got rid of the corpse.

The frame of a stranger slips by my alley. A young female face I don't recognize. Dressed in dark clothes, carefully pushing forward.

They don't have the courtesy of radio contact.

I feel the baton and knives.

The sentinels split. With a push, I set Runt and One Ear free and they leap after the figure on the road.

She's fast and sneaky, but Runt is faster. I feel the blur of this new bloods strange smell and for a second, I expect a burst of heat or lightning.

Nothing happens.

A silver sliver, arrow sent flying, knife puncturing a wound, my dog grabs her arm and pulls. Her blood sprays over the ground. Something primal in both me and Runt savor the taste. I feel the phantom of iron on the tip of my tongue.

Like a snapping twig, she falls and the dogs drag her over growling.

"And who might you be," I sneer down, and One Ear drags her even closer, ripping into her other arm. She's surprisingly silent in her pain.

No answer, and Runt puts paws on her chest, red saliva dripping from her snout.

No suicide pills now for this one. There's a gun at her belt. I kick at her side and my boot catches it, standing on top of the metal.

"Where are they?"

Her eyes are flicking around. They are too old and clever in her smooth face. It reminds me of Ara or Calpurnia seizing me up and down.

The baton unfolds with a swing of my hand.

"I can beat it out of you."

One Ear jumps a step away and the wall of black shivers.

Two, Loren said. _Where is the other?_

I get my answer when he screams into my ear and a gunshot pierces through the silence.

"What is going on?"

"Flying!" Is all the answer I get and then, I see his body swing toward the edge of the tiny back of the roof. He kicks hanging on the waterdrain, then the metal bends and with a crashing halt it loosens and falls.

The sentinels are in a flurry.

The earth shakes in my sight.

The roof above my head creaks and shakes in vibrations that buzz in my bones.

The whole length of the metal falls on One Ear pushing away as fast as he can. With a yelp, his massive body collapses and I scream. Blood pours over his grey brown fur. He barely moves a moment.

Runt and I growl in anger. 

One second of being unfocused and a hand from someone shoving me. And Runt changes target to protect me from any harm while my head brushes over the other dog's consciousness.

A part of me hates the sounds of war in fiery passion, and my consciousness slips a second, derailing dangerously. If I didn't cling to the dogs minds, I would be gone.

My target uses the moment to run. She makes it around the corner.

We leap into action.

The eyes are peeling into the sky.

Flying is a dream of birds and pilots. This man though flies.

Runt stops abruptly.

We both stare at the empty space in front of us.

Only a single sentinel rushes past us, then another salve of gunshots screams above my head.

Runt snaps at the figure running away, masked soldier moving to the control center.

The smell of the fresh red colored blood burns in my senses. One Ear joins us, cluttered dust and blood over his body.

"Viper One to Control," I spew into my connection. "Do you copy?"

"Is she there?"

"No sign of her. No sign of your burner brother."

If his breath was anticipating, it is leveling to a suppressed, angry sound.

My feet pick up the pace and I run. The wind cools my sweat.

Bryce and Asher stare at me in confusion beside the blaring alarm and blinking light above the concrete.

The dogs follow the smell inside. One Ear is a little slower than his sister.

"What the fuck are you staring at? Move."

"You told us to stand down," Bryce snaps in defense but follows me to trail the dogs, weapons drawn. Asher's face fluctuates in stone patterns.

"No I didn't. Did you get hit on the head?"

Asher looks past me. The dogs circle a group of sentinels for a moment.

"You didn't come back after the last talk?"

I only hiss a wordless insult at him. The dogs run around the sentinels, sniffing.

"Tell them to stand back," one orders.

Runt has her yellow eyes on him.

"Lady Viper," someone behind me asks. "Pull the dogs back from your own men."

With a frustrated breath I whistle. They both back up, then they move outside, where the stream comes and goes.

"Gone." Another report rattles past me. "Inflicted minor injuries on both targets, no sign of anyone else. Kept the sighting of the flyer minimal."

Useless. Not even able to catch these measly creatures.

Useless.

I needed this.

Useless.

Fall after fall. Time wasted, and Samson was right, it is another Harbor Bay.

I am not going to join Ara and all the others behind silent draining stone.

Never again.

"Lost them," someone assesses.

My baton hits the console in front of me. With a sizzling short circuit, the keyboard bursts into sparks and a part of a monitor bursts under another series of hits with the rubber end. The dogs bark and howl in the distance.


	33. Relation

_relation  
_

_\- doings between individuals or groups  
_

_\- a person connected with another by blood or marriage  
_

_\- the state of having shared interests or efforts (as in social or business matters)_

* * *

_**I** bring back bad luck._

I have never been scared of fire. Now, it burns inside my veins like I have the ability to burst into them. With every breath, my panic and circling thoughts turn into more anger until I am a wild beast in the guise of a woman. My sight flickers and my body feels like it will burst. 

My first want to smash into things, and I don't care about who I hit if they dare to come too close. They all have started to move on, to back up, to pack together. In the distance, somewhere beyond the fence, the city lies barely touched. With minimal damage and minimal disturbances. 

The panic and wild shaped anger flicker through my system in waves.

_Merry misfortune on your endeavors, bad luck Daliah proves them all right._

The realization of my own weakness, my own system breaking, my malfunction, is never a nice one. It turns unbearable now, and I have to push through my helplessness.

My body is a monolith shaking - membranes quivering. For better or worse I am frozen in place where both Asher and Loren have put me, fresh air around my head and a world still as faded and grey as before. The fence clinks in a breeze.

The world turns around me in a slipping injustice of my own unforgiving fault, and the frustration gets accompanied by screams that curdle my blood and pierce whatever is left of my brain.

The steps behind me are soft. If I wasn't unable to move, I would bolt around and kick into whoever dares. 

I look over from the corner of my sight. Taller figure in dark, hushed in colors of burned off crimson fire and black like soot left, Maven has joined me on staring down a fence. 

If I speak, I will insult him. 

In my current position, I should keep my mouth shut. At least that is what the little rest of my intelligence left tells me. The rest of me is unwilling to bend, even if it means my end. I have damned a 15 year old boy to die in war, I have no interest in being blackmailed and pressured even more now.

Larentia is always right.

You have to make decisions and live with the consequences. 

Even if they maim you.

For a second, the silence is ashen between us, a bitter layer of annoyed frustration. 

"I am starting to think you aren't able to catch a fly even if it landed on your nose," his smooth voice says, without much enthusiasm or life now. "Although at least you did a decent job before."

"I had their scent." I always have their scent. I keep it to myself that I know exactly how one of them tricked us. The idea of someone able to look like all of us and just shift in between impersonating us is a paranoia that could cause shriveling atrophy of common sense.

If Samson picks through my skull and brain again, he will see all of this. 

I wish, not for the first time, I could simply forget it. Erase parts of my knowledge to protect myself.

"Your men whiffed it." I cross my arms and feel him shift beside me. The earpiece is long gone, dangling down the side of my shoulder in a brusque pale cable. "When will you finally tell your men that they should treat me with a certain amount of respect. If I find the incompetent idiot that shoved me, I will flay the skin off his hand and break his bones."

He doesn't disagree to that, at least. When I turn to face him, his blue eyes are pools over a harsh dark sea of grey widdled skin, thinly veiled sleeplessness, the same as before, or even worse, who knows.

I wonder if it is nightmares that keep someone like him awake. Or if its something else entirely. My spindling spider memories remember his void, awake, whispers in the dark of a bedroom that could have been a cell.

"I understand not giving away resources. We are in a shortage of sorts." An understatement. My hands still shake, again shake, but at least when I hide them behind my back in fists, he doesn't see it. "And...It's a lock jaw. We are trying to hang on to capturing them because we cannot let go. My dogs do that too. I have done it with Colonel Macanthos before you got her murdered."

I am not the only one ready to burst behind my frozen face. My panic and anger build higher with a closer step. My boots are scraping over the ground, my hair is a floating dark knot, and his eyes under a stray bit of his own black hair narrow a little. I wonder. Would I burn and sink like my hawk did in Naercy? Or would I be alive and horribly wounded?

"I agree with you."

"So you aren't going to put me into a cell?" I snort a little. "Gracious, I am so relieved. Maybe this affiliation is still not completely lost. I was prepared to poison all of the capital."

"I haven't forgotten that it is a perk of you to murder others with snake bites and venom." He smiles a little, the tiniest bit of any other emotion than frustration. "The problem is that I'm almost fond of you. Liking someone is dangerous enough, remember, Lady Viper?"

"Yes, I remember telling you that." I breathe in once, twice, deep, trying to ground myself. 

The dogs howl beyond the gates and we watch the heavy march of the tiny unit pulling together like a swarm of my insects.

For a soothing moment, the wind picks up and carries my sweaty exterior away, like a spider on a silk string swaying off. We breathe in a couple of times.

Just a few weeks ago, he found me under a window and told me to breathe, experienced advice by someone that knows about panic attacks and whispers in your mind.

"The next stop will be easier to execute."

"Let's hope so."

* * *

Both Asher and Bryce wait for me, and they both look worried at my stance. My neck hurts, my spine tingles, and they stare at my scarred face as if I will spit at them. 

Bryce always looks like he has just found a hair in his food and can't quite get it off his tongue anyhow. His pale, narrow features and cutting eyes make us look vaguely related, while Asher is towering in silent brute concentration as always.

"Both of you, keep quiet about the situation." I blow out a stream of air walking. "As your superior officer, I command it. No one needs to know about this strange situation. That I apparently told you off." 

Bryce processes that with something like silent judgment. The banshee probably wants to be back somewhere that actually utilizes his abilities. He is always sticking to Asher's side. And my stoneskin soldier is weighing the command on his shoulders- but he doesn't disagree, just like he didn't say a word carrying my shoe or dragging Calpurnia away for me. A piece of his neck and ear harden and break in crinkling waves while he thinks about it. 

A foolish second, something inside me thinks about Roman and the way his body used to break in emotional seconds, then I see Ellyn's head sinking with a bullet stuck inside. 

"It was a misstep from my side," I tell them. "I missed the cue. Next time, this will not be a problem. Do you understand?"

"You're the commander of this weird unit," Asher says matter of fact and looks back to Bryce's smaller form. "We can't disagree. It would break the chain."

Commander. I almost feel the rotation of Ellyn Macanthos in her gravestead- she never wanted me to be anything but locked inside a house.

"I appreciate that." Even if I am not sure how far the appreciation and loyalty really goes. 

Up down, at the comparingly small landing field , hovering by the rotating motors of the smaller snapdragons and bigger metal-plated jets, my other two charges have made some room and wait. 

The dogs sit straight, but their attention is captured by Hadrien slowly moving in front of One Ear. The closer I get, the more I see that they stack tiny brown dog treats in his hand.

Runt is very interested, and Loren is bruised but kindly amused. Usually, Loren doesn't smile. He is either pale and lost or used to be smug and sleazy. This is just a small warm expression of amusement beneath his wounds. Something that isn't meant for me. Something I have never even known he is capable of.

"Four," Hadrien counts. He has built a tower on the twitching nose. "Five. Wait."

One Ear stares very intently at the treats in his face.

"Wait." 

Loren makes a low sound. 

The tower falls and the dogs jump on their front paws until Hadrien waves and they both inhale the treats with crunching teeth and wagging tails.

My feet stomp on the paved ground. 

They both notice. Loren jumps into a straighter position, even though he doesn't meet my eye, the smile is faded. Hadrien is blissfully ignoring me, just slowly setting himself up to stare past me and my guards. The dogs come around, licking their snouts, caressing and flattering around me and my guards' legs now. Asher gives one of their heads a big smacking pat.

"We move on."

"Sure."

And we move on.

I acknowledge something just between us animosi under the loud stirring and breathing of the machinery.

"This was another disaster."

Loren leans forward, one side of his face broken in grey building bruises. People always seem to aim for his face, and somehow I have grown almost pitiful for him. He used to be such a pretty, useless boy. Not that I miss the insults and the cocksureness. Being humble suits him well. "It isn't like you knew one of them could fly."

Hadrien grips the strap of his bag, another set of all the documents he has hamstered and collected inside, I am sure. He is so separated and shut off if he even exists with us others down here, who knows. His eyes stare while he sits very still. So all I have is Loren.

"Asher told me you got him with a knife, stabbed him right in the leg."

"It wasn't enough to stop me from falling down the roof."

I could punish him. But what did I do? We are in the same situation. So I just cross my hands over my stiff dark jacket. "We're all prone to failing right now, it seems like. We don't talk about it. Just be prepared for anything. "

Only three days later, we are not prepared for anything at all, and things shift and break as mirrors shattered on tiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading if you made it this far. I hope to end this book just as I did last year the first part in a few weeks to go into writing the King's Cage part. Typing on the phone and some other complications make it move a bit more slow. Still appreciate the hits bc at least it means someone reads this.


	34. Haze

_haze_

_\- fine dust, smoke, or light vapor causing lack of transparency of the air_

_\- something suggesting atmospheric haze especially **:** vagueness of mind or mental perception_

* * *

**_T_** he next days are preparation and exaltation of force. I and the rest of my motley unit stand by in attention. I haven't been this frequently around Maven Calore since the early spider days of being bought to distract the Irals, and I don't cherish the closeness. It isn't because I cannot see his strengths. He is smart. It is his redeeming quality.

But he is more or less a puzzle that I am still missing a few pieces to solve. Every pattern gets stuck together, but yet it feels incomplete. Like my head feels after a blown-up headache when Samson has rummaged inside, I am weary.

The dogs don't like him much either. They stay by my side, but the way he moves and smells rubs them the wrong way, and they push back in some sort of mistrust.

It is never easy to get answers from him. He is too good with words, and he is too good at dissuading tension or maneuvering around it. I usually sit or stand somewhere in a tenure, a distance, at watch, with my own plans.

Samson has given me things to chew on now that I don't hunt someone that obviously is able to change their face, fly, shoot lightning, or barrel in jumping leaps away.

Catching rebels has become second station after the lists and the new bloods that I have caught. 

"Who wrote that list?" I dare to implore again. "Who knew about this? This must have taken quite a time?"

I almost don't expect an answer. It is just my stubborness of not giving in. 

I scoff softly over the maps and letters and everything else safely tugged in so I cannot catch a glimpse at it. "They're dead, aren't they?"

"About to be executed," he answers, with one look down, as if he wants to make sure the schedule is correct. 

"They are in Corros?" The tract for traitors breaks off a mean memory of Ara in my brain, then I force myself to shake that off and think greater. "Imprisoned?"

"Many people are imprisoned. You were too."

Ah, there is the nonchalance again, the indifferent blank smoothness I want to wipe off his face with my fist. The dogs snarl behind me. 

"Samson already told me about the plan to reconditon and train a new blood army."

"He did."

"I know we push together to travel there. It was in the wavers and orders I received. Just spit it out. If they are about to be executed, you have nothing to lose."

It is a gamble, and I don't take Maven for much of an addicted gambler. Unlike people like Loren he misses a certain factotum of being too thrilled by risk that is too unreasonable. He knows too well he can loose all and then will be eaten alive. His eyes are thoughtful. "Do you remember the day you were about to tell Ara Iral everything you thought you knew?"

My memory is not faded, and he shouldn't think I forgot. 

"I snuck around Mare Barrows trainings sessions, evaded Lucas Samos, and then saw her use lightning while not showing any indication to need a source to syphon the energy from. I had to be very careful because the singer was-" The dogs shift their heads and ears behind me just as I do. "The singer? Jacos? Really?"

The bits and pieces of the research and blood, the names and numbers gain a new line to it.

"Very astute," Maven compliments, dry as the heat of a fire he can produce with a flick of his hand. 

"I am known for intelligent observations." I stand very still. "But I didn't pay attention to him being thrown into prison. I should have known your mother and you would not waste that opportunity. I am just surprised to see you didn't just let Samson or someone else execute him."

"Sometimes people prove some sort of value alive. "

It is a slight jab. I take it personal. "Let's not start telling each other about incompetence now. The list is long and I haven't even had something to eat today."

"Me neither." And it shows. He is ghastly pale. My body has its own trouble. It falters sometimes at the shouts, at loud cracks and noise. I flinch and grind my teeth most hours of the day. So I can see that he has troubles I may be able to understand. 

I could just move off and away. But he said he _likes_ me. And if I am about to crack him and his guarded self, I am at least not in need to work around more blackmail. I will never trust him. But that is at least something I can work at. 

So I swipe one hand over my scars and force my face to relax. "How about lunch then? I can chew and insult you at the same time."

* * *

With Tolly already gone to Corros, I am almost certain I will be alone with my unit. That is until Evangeline gets dropped off one day before we depart.

A spider on the wall tells me about executors belonging with the rest of the force, and just like in Naercy and below the tunnels, we are supposed to hunt together at the tip. The news titulate some sort of trip to express condolences for the loss of some nobles in a city we know not any of us will return to.

I would be lying if I say I wasn't grateful. Lunch with Maven hasn't suddenly lead to us being a comfortable bunch of friends, and we are watching each other closely. My guards and my cousins are more trustworthy, but they are still not the family I wanted to have for so many years.

I have secrets to keep from everyone, and she is no exception. 

Secrets crawl over me like a swarm of spiders. And whenever I open my mouth I need to take care I don't swallow and suffocate on them.

I have to look up at her, and both my black hair pinned back and her bright grey braid sway in the wind of rotor blades. Asher and Bryce behind me gracefully retreat at her eyes scanning over them. They try to act as if they aren't here, evaporated by her glare. 

"It has been a moment," I greet. "Welcome. I suspect you have been informed when we depart tomorrow?"

"Yes," she shouts back, and when I don't move, she stares back over my shoulder. "Lead the way!"

It is a very quiet afternoon. The dogs jump around her , and Runt settles a head over her dark boots, quietly and protective, but very much in recognition. They're both not the submissive type, and they're both the same shade of grey in portions. 

I haven't been able to breathe. So I do that now while we exchange a strange salve of words.

"How is family?"

"Fine."

"Elane?"

A strange subject between us and my incapability for love. My past dismay and mockery for romance. My jabs at Elane and my mistrust. And the words that I had the last months. But things have changed- and maybe it distracts her enough to not see this side of me for what it is.

I swallow harshly at the lump in my throat.

"Daliah." She leans forward and Runt opens an eye to change the way she nuzzles Evangeline's leg. It leaves hair over her dark pants, but she doesn't react to it now. Her eyes are scanning me just as they took in my guards. Maybe there is a tinge of something else. "You look like shit."

I want to laugh, but instead I just take her hand. It is strange how immediate and firm her reaction is, just like every moment she has pushed and pulled at me to keep me out of harms way from rubble or projectiles. My nails are short and ripped at one chipped edge while hers are clean and clear. "I feel like shit, Evie. But it isn't like I wasn't prepared for this. As long as I keep my position, how I look doesn't matter. I was never that pretty anyway."

It isn't really a taunt as just a tired assessment.

She makes a low sound in her throat, but she can't disagree, and so I move on.

"I met Atara a while ago, did I tell you?"

"She must have been thrilled."

"She called me a horrible person."

Over that, some layer of amusment settles, slow, slow, until I fall asleep next to her. It happens too often around her and her brother. I just let my guard down too deep and yet I can't completely be honest. I am lulled in by the knowledge that I am not the person Evangeline is going to hit or snarl at, and that's fine with me. 

At morning dusk, everything is silent. The dogs have formed a blanket over me and Evangeline, keeping a small distance, but still sharing the space.

I watch streets of ants and webs of spiders fluctuate by the windows, just enjoying the respite of a silent moment. Then I watch her sleeping face, beside one paw of Runt. Her eyelids flutter a little and a long blurry bit of hair has faintly stared to dangle over her cheek.

I missed my cousins and my life before being shipped away twice now.

It feels like something has been stolen from me the day I left. I lost too much time.

I don't want this.

I don't want to care.

I don't want to be distressed, I don't want to feel anything.

I need to come clean. I need to-

I need to make things right.

But what does that even mean? What is right? What am I doing? I have sentenced children, innocents to death. I have stolen and lied. I have betrayed the trust of a fifteen year old red boy now dying in a trench. 

The secrets in my throat bubble up in vile acid. 

She is so close. What if I stretch out my hand and just...?

The dogs shift.

The moment is over. The memory of being a girl able to sneak inside her room and stay there is gone.

I am a grown, married woman with a position of power.

And so I get up before she can say anything. Before I can say anything.

* * *

We are not in Corros Prison at the time it gets...liberated. Destroyed. Conquered.  
All those words are true, and yet they all mean very different things.

Liberation insinuates the crimes on those inside the leaking, cold walls. It means freedom for people I have personally brought in and death for the jailers.  
Liberation means the wrongs cannot be righted, but they can be ended.   
My memories are vivid, even if I have only been inside once. Every guard on the metal catwalks, the Captain and the control room, the white tiles, the color-coded sections, and I can imagine Elara sitting in one of the cold rooms, concocting and redirecting the experiments to repurpose an army of incredible worth and unknown limits.

Destruction means only means that everything is rendered useless and ruined as it has been before. A new scar on the surface of a wasteland.

Conquered means that they have attacked and assaulted us. That they have taken something that doesn't belong to them. A kingdom build on envy, pride and power doesn't take too kindly to people taking things from them.

No. We hear the news first after it has already expired, before we have gathered there in a final solution to create any formation.

Numbers roll in about death, about losses. And just as my brain creates illusions of the haggard faces behind the cellbars in my brain freed or mushed together in explosions, it leaps over to the thought of Ptolemus bleeding over his armor.

I am not panicking yet, but I am grateful I am at least not alone. Loren and Hadrien flurry behind me, and Evangeline at least proceeds to keep her composure. I snarl and sneer too much, and I sweat. 

The person solely absent of this whole ordeal is Maven.

"Where is the king?" I straighten my back, and in my black , exceedingly plain outfit I look ramshackled and outranged next to Evangeline. "You need to go find him."

She gives one long look. "You should go."

My neck cracks painful when I move it. "He doesn't trust me, even if we act like we could be _friends_."

She chews on it a moment but is blunt if quiet, head high. Because we don't afford any waste of time. No one listens on us right now. That's good. "He doesn't trust anyone."

I grimace but do not disagree.

And as the news about loosing Corros spread, something else gets transmitted. 

I am barely watching the blasted broadcast. But Queen Elara is dead. And spreading that around on a countrywide broadcast is even more of a victory than taking the prisonside.

And suddenly it makes sense that I haven't seen Maven around.

It is easy to find him with a few more eyes and feet scurrying over a wall. It is spotting sentinels first, then entering the room with eight legs through a crack.

Maybe I expected him to lose his temper, to yell or ruin things, like I do. He is very silent in the almost empty room, just his lips moving from time to time. One bigger slowly plops down on a string over his dark hair and the crown, and his eyes snap up. 

"You're allowed to come in, Lady Viper."

Tension is easily readable in the shoulders. I don't have any sharp words.

"What now?" I ask and stretch my hand out the second time in the last day.

My touch is the imitation of what I have with my cousins. 

His answer is a grip like a vice. It tightens painful, then it grows hot, too hot, until heat scorches my skin and leaves a red searing pain in front of my eyes. The room reeks of a burning smell. 

I blink through water shooting into my eyes.

The pain stops as abruptly as it has come. 

My palm and part of my fingers is burned, irritated flesh in bubbles and spread out grey anger.

It is enough of an answer. It means someone will pay.


	35. Brood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone sees this, happy new year. Hopefully this years treats everyone better. We are almost done with book 2. Thanks if you made it this far, again, any kind of feedback is appreciated. This will go through revision after finish.

_brood_

_-_ _the young of an animal or a family of young especially_ **_:_ ** _the young (as of a bird or insect) hatched or cared for at one time_

_-a group having a common nature or origin_

_\- the children of a family_

_\- of a bird_ _**:** _ _to cover (young) with the wings_

_\- to think anxiously or gloomily about: ponder_

* * *

**_I_** can't escape both my guards and my cousins noting my burned hand.

"It's nothing," I answer.

They don't believe me. Least of all Evangeline. The rest happily obliges to corner me and get my hand the smallest medical attention. It is covered in elastic compression knitted fabric, a small white bandage that slightly soothes the aggressive tickle with some sort of cooling underneath.

Hadrien and Loren work softly on that while the rest catch and corner me, voices asking me things, for direction, about what happened.

It isn't like I have a very big story to tell or plot to unravel. Nothing except a burned hand and a dismissal.

"At least he seems...relatively collected," I conclude.

My guards try to keep a neutral face. Evangeline avoids any snide remark. MY cousins only grimace. Again. No one believes me.

I wonder...

Elara once cut me into pieces during dinner, and she never seemed like a very loving mother or pleasant person. I can't say any mind reader dead isn't a triumph personally. Some part of me wonders how I would celebrate the moment Samson was dead. I would _dance_ over his corpse.

But he isn't important, and he hasn't provided any sort of strategic or political discourse for a country. Elara may have been a horrible person, as Atara coins us all, but she was well versed and brilliantly smart on scheming and holding the stitched network together.

Everything is balancing on the tip of a knife. What now happens is what will mint over a lot of people.

For just a moment I wonder if anyone will dare another coup. Just now, that the mind readers are weak, and we have a barely adult wearing the crown.

Will we return to the capital? What is the next step? And how good of retaliation will it be?

Or maybe the strike will come from another side entirely.

The broadcast has fanned some revolts. Something about military efforts to quench and suffocate the revolts of red people in bigger cities, inspired by the broadcast that showed off a victory and a Queen's corpse.

I swallow hard on that while my subordinates breach the air with trickling news.

No news from the capital, but on the small landing site, bodies shiver on in.

Evangeline is more poised than me, even if I give my best. My back feels like it will snap and break again in a fall. At least no one shoves me or stands in the way as long as I follow her.

The inside of my chest and bones alleviate pressure the moment that I see Ptolemus arrive in one piece. My shoulders involuntary arch. I still push back a little when he moves forward his sister and they exchange a few words. It is a quiet and quick second with the slightest touch and a grimace, eyebrows pushing together.

"You're alone?"

"As good as."

"You aren't hurt?" I keep my distance, a good wall of flesh to surround them. A good, disciplined part, letting them both having a moment. "The reports were-"

Before I have a chance to withstand any assault, I get captured in a tight embrace, just as tight on the night he hoisted me up. My bones get smushed together for a moment, I am a rough patch of burning nerves, but then, I settle in the familiar touch and smell. No one can see that I shake, just for a second, just as long as no one sees my face. I squeeze Ptolemus sides and back as tightly as I can, arms pushing over the metal, and I don't care how I can cut myself, I am already hurt.

I just want to stay like this. Just act as if there is nothing more important.

With a last deep breath, I inhale the smell of metal and dark, heavy odor of fighting, the letftover traces of fire, sweat and gunshots. His hand squeezes my upper arm , and I focus on the slight discomfort that worms through my stomach.

"I have some things to tell you. Something vital. A lot of things happened the last month."

It is the truth.

Evangeline stares at the way I avert my gaze, stance shifting for any sort of sudden attack. Ptolemus lets go of my arm. I feel a shiver on my spine. The gap between us grows, the bridge breaks.

"Now is not a good moment, though," I wind myself back. Evangeline has caught up to me and my guilty behavior. I was never good at lying to her. So technically, I never do it. I just don't state the whole truth. I sidestep them. I do that since the day we returned to the capital. "I have to find out where everyone is. What they are doing."

Hours are of the importance, the longer Maven's silence catches on, the more everything turns impatient.

And then, something strange happens.

This concrete block is a station for military. It isn't laid out to be fancy or plush, but to be secure. High fences, cameras, locked metal doors.

Trespassing is not possible, not without being shot on sight. And as much as I hate every single one of the sentinel guards, at least so far they haven't been more incompetent than all the rest of the residing forces.

The dogs go crazy. At first, they are mad, their fur stands up, their ears twitch. Their noses suck in the scent of something that reminds them of all the people they have dragged and chased down the streets. But something is different.

The air around me feels too hot. The bandage cuts into my skin when I tighten my grip around One Ear's harness. It feels like he is my counterweight right now, as I am unable to stand myself.

Runt chases down the hallway. And I follow her snarling.

Her silver flashing body stops under the neon light of a ceiling lamp. With another snarl, she suddenly stops, then recoils. Her paws punch into the ground, her ears lie flat, then she pushes her tail down and backs off, showing her teeth.

"What's wrong, girl?" I mutter. Even in her senses everything is just scented and covered in the uncertain moment of attack or retreat. Her eyes are waiting for me to order her, to guide and then reward her.

My guards, cousins, everyone has caught up with our behavior. Even if the rest of the base is suprisingly silent, and the blasted sentinels are nowwhere to be seen.

"Daliah?"

"Someone is here," I offer. My senses melt into One Ear gratefully. The network and traces of scentss is overwhelming at first, but as he pushes down, I take it all in. I can see the trails of sweat, the components of it, and every single body here is different. It forms a long system of roots, and at the surface their being seems to bloom.

"Intruders?"

My cousins are taut and tall in silver and black. My boots scrape over the ground in the same retreat as Runt, but the scents lead me somewhere.

"I don't know yet. Let's not set off any alarms. Bryce, Asher, right, Loren, stay with Hadrien."

I don't issue any command when I turn left. They fall into trot, and both Ptolemus and Evangeline move beside me, until we form a triangle in the corridor.

The scent portrudes until it mixes with someone else I know well. Surrounded by a bubble of silver guards, crown set up straight, Maven blinks into the light and forward. He looks grey and not even ghastly pale anymore.

"The whole family together," Maven notes, and I retreat a little. A secret about assasinations stands written on the wall in silver blood and bulletts between us.

"The dogs have picked up a possible intrusion," Ptolemus answers.

"No intrusion. More of an unexpected visit."

We all know better than to push this.

"Lady Viper is dismissed to the capital," he continues. Nothing is as frail or even snarky about him, nothing like the slow silent seconds of favours or negotiations, the quips that almost went too far. He looks almost confident. A nice front, perhaps. "Magnetrons with me."

The dogs catch another whiff of _New Blood._

I narrow my eyes watching my cousins leave.

* * *

Archeon stands still. It also lies very silent. Where there were rumors about revolt in other cities, no one would dare here. This city with the bridges and floodlights, the big towering mansions and the small, netting alleyways lies without any conflict. The tunnels and swers are sealed, the red districts and quarters get staked out and controlled more often here. Naturally, rebelling in the middle , now, after there already has been a coup that has cost so much, and so many interferences, would be madness.

My body under my uniform shakes in goosebumps when we finally reach the western part of the city, the cliffsides of mansions.

My head spins.

A whole fracture of my family and others have assembled in the foyer. Both of my dogs sprint upwards, and their bodies are alarmed instead of. The rest of the pack is just as wild and they are angry. They slaver and bark, with their drool dripping over their open mouths and teeth.

My father looks small and old between them and Loren, he almost topples over on his cane and in his bend over , weak form. My mother and the Arven girl are in white. They are foreign and unwelcome in this home, and they stick out as sore to my eye as my body convulses in a cramp.

Hector doesn't bat an eye as he turns away and faces the entourage. His face is brutally tired, his senses are dragged out by the noise, and I can empathize. "Welcome back, son, Lady Daliah."

No words for Loren. He still makes himself tall while he keeps the dogs under control. He drags Battlescar back on the collar, a heavy wild snarling body barely under any restraint. The dog leaps and rears, and the thumping sounds are the only distant interrruptions.

"Anything of note?"

"An emergency meeting has been proposed, Samson Merandus has been around the perimeter of Whitefire and our mansion spitting venom."

That sounds about right. I look around.

"Where is he, though? Have you seen him leave?"

If Hector can look smug, he does now. The gleam in his weathered, wrinkled eyes is speaking about it. "He left a while ago. I sicced the rest of the kennel on him."

I stare at Battlescar and the sleek black dog wallowing in anger, at my father, at the other two figures. "And this?!"

Hector churns for a moment, tongue moving behind his closed, pressed together lips before he talks. "Your parents are having...a discussion. Not very private."

The dogs snarl again.

"What is this about?" I ask louder this time.

My father touches my shoulder, warm and careful. Something in both of us shakes, and we try to hide it. "This was about a personal mattter between your mother and me. We had a disagreement."

"I thought Larentia told you to stop this. And I did too."

My mother sniffs in played dismay. Her hair is slighty tousled and broken off a braid in strands. "I can explain this."

"I am sick and tired of all of you lurking around my house."

The girl opens her mouth, and I expect either an insult or maybe a snap as to why she always lurks around. I don't want her reasoning. I am tired, and I am sad, I am angry and I am disgusted by myself.

I don't _need_ this. I don't _want_ another discussion. My hand is covered in burns, my body in bruises, my mind in exhaustion.

My boot sweeps at her shin, finds a soft spot and kicks hard. She clutters on to the ground, barely catching her before I am above her, foot setting on her body, pushing. Then I loom over her throat. Her fingers send a shiver of numb cold over me, a shocking grasp that creeps my leg up. Then I feel her silencing me, cutting me off the animals first, then making my body weak, and I remember the feeling from my cell. It makes me more furious, and I push my foot down on her body, ready to choke her in my blurry vision.

The Arven girl makes a low sound, and her strong eyes hold onto me while she squeezes me herself. Her ability is the only reason I have not crushed her throat yet.

My mother has decided to join in on the fray.

"Stop." She tries to tug at my arm. She holds me, pulls me backward and I scream, an angry growl as my boot wavers.

I usually try to evade her touch. Now I throw myself at her when she tries to help the girl and then hit her square in the jaw. My fist hurts and my knuckles burn as I hit her. It explodes in fozzling pain, but I knock her back. Then I turn my attention back to the girl on the ground, sober light clothes and hard face not shy to blink upwards in breathless anger.

"Daliah stop," My mother repeats. "Stop, she is your sister."

Her words barely puncture my brain. My father in the corner sighs.

Hectors hands pull me back on one side, and Loren pulls on the other. Together, they push me away from the women.

Everything in the house screams under my vibrating anger.

The dogs are growling. My father holds one by the head, fingers sunk in a chunk of brown and grey fur.

The girl scrambles to her feet. And now I see the shining similarities with my mother. In the structure of her face, the eyebrows.

Loren still holds my arm, and my nails scratch him. It only invokes the bad image of Samson's blood as I dig my pain into my cousin's skin. I hide myself at his side, eyes cast on the ground. Runt snaps beside us, and One Ear rubs himself against me. I can't find my voice, and everyone else doesn't know what to say either, judging by the hushed silence. Only the heavy panting of the dogs and the low breath of the people.

"See, this is the reason your mother refuses to stay in the same building as this person," Hector tells his son. "She heard you sat with them at a dinner table and she repeatedly called me out for letting you. Even if she's still mad at you."

Hadrien's eyes are concentrated , avoiding contact with his father when he pushes his glasses up his nose. He hates this. I can see it in the way that this makes his head move back and forth, like a nervous horse. He barely grazes me with his eyes once, takes in my form, and then moves back to being uncomfortable.

I stare at the white dressed bodies on the opposite part of the foyer again. The girl glares back at me.

I shouldn't be surprised. My mother's lover goes in and out the house for two decades. Any child that wasn't my father's would be a mimic or silencer. The writing, as they say, has been on the wall.

I cannot decide yet if the girl is useful, and if I even want to have a younger sister. Not if she isn't like the family I have perceived as brother and sister for years.

I _had_ siblings. Similar to the Arven girl, they don't share my name.

I feel like I will faint again, blacking out. I lean myself against Loren, and his arm shifts to support my weight, steady around me, as if we haven't hated the other for most of our lives. My cousin smells weirdly like honey or fragranted tea beneath a layer of sweat. I only stay next to him until I can be sure I won't just fall down.

"Leave. Now. Leave my home. I don't care where you go." My father should have done this years ago. "I want you gone in the morning."

They know better than to disagree.

"Everyone go back to your respective rooms," my father decides. His cane clinks over the flooboards. Almost like the scepter of a ceremonial master, just like his old friend Provos would announce something. "The show is over."


	36. Progression

_progression_

_\- the action or process of advance_

_\- a continuous and connected series_

* * *

**_M_** y mother leaves the house in the morning. It is a walk filled with shame and her head hangs deep.

Watching her existence erased from the house is a long time due. Seeing her musical instruments and her belongings carried out, a long caravan of boxes and arms heaving on a piano, I take a moment in my morning routine to watch. The dogs topple over me, hunting each other in the yard, leaping over the ground. The pack is reunited and they celebrate it by fighting again.

The smell of the kennels is soothing my nerves. The sounds of so many creatures, their muscles, their noses, their voices.

I breathe it in deep while I exercise. And that also helps. Running laps, controlling my breath in white clouds drifting up the sky.

I can already count the days and I will bleed again, with cramps and pain included I don't need.

Loren joins me in the morning course, Hadrien sits down at the edge in his own training gear, but just starts to throw treats at the dogs after a while. So we continue watching the procession.

For a moment, this turns into ashamed silence, because he knows very well he watched me leave the Viper mansion in the summer just like this.

As my mother leaves, someone else returns.

Atara appears after breakfast, dressed in black and green uniform pants and jacket, hair pushed back into an even shorter knot dangling behind her neck shaved clean off any long hair. The only thing that has stayed the same is the talon clasped around her throat.

"Welcome back," I greet her. "I can use any capable hand in the future."

"Hello Tara," Loren adds, eyes not pointed anywhere near her face.

Neither of us get an answer except for a deadly look. The black lines around her eyes are so smudged and smeared, she looks like she has been wearing it for a few days, only refreshing it but never removing.

Her hands hold a big bag tightly, and she throws it at Asher when he is unfortunate enough to come close to her. With a smash he catches it, then hands it to Bryce, who stares at the big luggage as if it is a newborn baby.

"What am I supposed to do with it?"

"Are you stupid, soldier?" She asks. "You hand it servants or carry it to my room."

"You heard her," Asher mumbles, smiling slighty. "You get to carry the lady's bag. And I get to carry anything else for..."

She doesn't offer to reintroduce herself, maybe he hoped to get her to be sweet this time around. He had an eye on her when we visited. He doesn't know either of my cousins if he hopes for sweetness in us ladies.

Bryce still fumbles with the bag. "You just gave it to me, Asher-"

My hand dismisses them. "You can both take a break and carry our new arrival and her bags up."

Asher lifts his eyebrows. "After you."

He doesn't hide his interest very well.

He just blankly stares at her back and further down when she has passed.  
We all watch her, some still ashamed and downtrodden, some amused.

"She doesn't want to be here," Loren mutters.

I bite my cheek and scratch one of the dogs behind the ears. "Certainly not."

My father clinks on his cane over the ground.

"I called in a favor with Hector and his wife. Laris has transferred her." He gives me a long look. "We need everyone."

I don't disagree.

* * *

Samson stays lost. I am inconsolable about the fact I can't see him squirm. Seeing him hurt are my favourite memories of my husband.

_Now who is useless and weak that his greatest benefactor is dead?_

It could be funny. I want to bask in the satisfaction. The snake suddenly has turned into a worm, and he has no power, nothing, he has no one outside of his family. He hangs by a tether, more so than before.

My cousins return next. They just return. Nothing else. I get some partially mixed information as to where they went.

What I can say is that they return separate from Maven.

Then. Another transport.

And a rumour that has spread far enough.

I can hear them talk about it behind their hands, beneath the meetings deep in the epidermis of the palace life. Tolly said I was good at making myself look like Larentia, my self imitating what I need to. I hope that it is true now, because I have to be convincing both mentally and in my represantation. So I straighten my back, stick my chin out, hair falling over my clavicle and shoulders, a dark curtain flailing over my shoulders.

Maven Calore has brought back a personal prisoner.

My burned hand hurts under my gloves, and I scratch the wound absently.

Finally, on the hunt for rebels. It turns into one sucess. Only one single prisoner. And no dead bodies to show off.

 _"He let his brother go when their forces crashed their jet,"_ someone says, and my spider legs twitch, with another scratch on my hand. _"He is still alive. But you don't have it from me."_

_"He took the rebel girl. The lightning girl. That'll lead us to the rest."_

_"They should chop her head off."_

_"She is going to be held captive here in Whitefire."_

There is a grain of truth on every rumour. And when I wander through the palace, one quarter of it, the whole hallway, is dismantled and cut off from the rest. It is empty and lifless, at first, but there are guards and white dressed bodies of the House of silence flitting around.

Wasted potential or brilliant move? It remains to be seen.

It isn't as if Maven Calore has to justify himself in front of me. He blatantly ignores my existence now that he is back with his prize.

The pack of hungry silver nobles leers at his feet for the next part of this.

My mouth creeps into a bitter grimace knowing what a whisper could do to her head. Killing her would be a mercy.

At least the end of this...the end of Corros...the end of Elara..has to set a new course in the whole debate about New Bloods. Maybe we will just build another prison for them.

Volo doesn't seem very happy, even if it is hard to judge behind his crooked stoice face, he isn't going to fund it. Ptolemus and Evangeline sir around the palace, and I never get to speak to them. The rest of the houses hold back for now.

But there is someone else. And my dogs know the scent. They snarl and retreat, waiting for me to tell them the order.

There is a New Blood wandering around. And everyone is wondering what he is doing walking through silver corridors.

Another outrage. It brews together.

Maybe I will go on a hunt soon.

This is how two more days go by, and I run and sit in meetings, a good leader, a good daughter.

At night, I lie awake in panic. Everything eats me. I am not myself. The sweat gathers under my robes, and I scrub myself bloody under the shower.

We wait for the next steps.


	37. Gelid

_gelid_

_\- extremely cold: icy_

* * *

**_N_** o celebratory mood is set up in the capital. Not yet. Maybe not ever. It is a grim day in a cold world.

I watch the square from the window of the rooms my family occupies. I use the biggest one as office, and I have a nice look down.

Crossing my arms, I stare at the podium built to throne over the square. It is a stage built for a speech or a execution. They won't cut her head off. Something much more humilating is about to process here. And every camera in the capital and every citizen is supposed to catch it.

The pathway to it is paved in hellish rebukes and bloody stones have been scrubbed clean since the fights and explosions. Everything has been repaired in front of the palace by now.

Atara follows my gaze and tilts her head. I have forced her to follow me. My guards take a day off.

"It is promising," I explain to her. "It is a small step to a victory. An open demonstration will soothe masses. That is how it always is."

"Is it? Are you happy about this?" She rolls her eyes. "Why do I even ask. You don't know what happiness is."

That rolls off my back. My skirt swishes over the floor in a swishing wave when I turn to her.

"I am not content. But only because everyone is upset that we only have the girl. As long as there is any contestor for the throne, especially one you can traditionally support, what do you think will happen?"

She makes a face of pure discontent. "Do you think we will fall into some sort of open war with each other? Silver houses are never friendly, but we don't battle open."

"Things change fast. Just be careful. I told you I need you. You are a capable warrior, even if you aren't much else."

For a second, her eyes cut me into half. We continue on.

I am unpleasantly suprised by the next visitor.

Evangeline said I looked like shit.  
Now, if she could see my husband, she would not even have a word for it, only a face that twists and tightens into a grimace. Because for whatever he is usually groomed and well dressed, he looks as miserable I feel. It brims behind his face, in dep purple eyerings and icy pale colors.

"Leave us, little snake, we have something to discuss."

My eyes try to tell her not to go. The more witnesses out in the open, the safer everyone is from him right now.

  
She throws one last look at me and then disappears, shutting the door hard.

My heels scrape backwards.

There is no escape.

I should have known Atara would abandon me. Who would want to stay too close to my husband. His anger is barely pushed back behind his facade, and it is a freezing cold burn. It grabs my skin, and sinks into my nerves. It touches me down every scar. The pale fingers draw lines down my spine, bend over my thin shoulderblades, and they squeeze me in goosebumps.

"You look horrible." My noise tears through the faint scent of too heavy alcohol this early in the day. It almost is as sharp as his cologne, a doubled down insult to my senses. "I see you drown yourself in pity."

"Wouldn't you know it. I don't appreciate that you are hiding from me."

"I have nothing to tell you."

"You have everything to tell me." His voice is so sharp it could cut through flesh. The hollow of his neck moves in muscle bands, the veins tightly and visibly pump blood. "You are my property. But I have a proposition to make. In exchange. Since you refuse to to give in."

His mind uncomfortably rubs against me, and his eyes are just like the sharks in Harbor Bay. But those sharks flattered me and revered me. "You have nothing of value since Elara Merandus died, Samson."

"You are weak. And I don't say it to insult you, my rotten widow."

I swallow loudly, tongue stuck to my teeth. Something in the flickering channel we share bounces again, some sort of weak emotion, something that is empty. It is the rubber band of intrigue that sometimes weakly snaps up and down between our flaring disrespect for each others existence.

My teeth clink and clutter together, my jaw is so tense that I feel a sharp pain. It doesn't matter as long as I can hold the tears back.

"There's your ballast. Look at it."

A shot , a dog ripping teeth into a body, and me being scared, my heart pumping too hard and fast, my body giving up-

The faces swim together in a screaming mask, morphing in my mind. A flash of Harris, holding a spider, and his timid face turns into another, a dead one, a condemned prisoner, and then Larentia, respectfully dignified and sneering, turning to Ellyns last moment, a shocked mask and a frozen skin. The stone pulls together and it is Roman, and I have cursed him too.

"There isn't a fix. But I thought about it since I started to read your thoughts. Your weakness comes from your failures."

Blood curdles together in my memories, streams of red and silver and brown and they flow fast and dry. My jaw is locked as tight as I can.

His face is so close I feel his breath on my skin. "Imagine if I just took it all away. Imagine if it left you, you could be finally empty and filled with something else instead. Everything would be better."

"You aren't a healer," I mutter. The shaking doesn't stop.

"No, no I don't want to heal you, " he cradles me softly and I want to puke. A small wrist movement catches a glimpse of a watch, and the way it turns and the seconds drip by is almost laughable. Every moment feels too long. "But it isn't the first time a whisper has shaped someone after their image. It will hurt. I will break you to pieces. But imagine what you could be. I would improve you. Remember how well we fit together already. You could have had this since the day you moved in with me in Summerton."

When he kisses me I automatically press my eyes together as hard as I can. The motion squeezes a single drop of hot water out of my eyes. Just a second, and it is a soft , almost chaste kiss that brushes over my temple, along the scar that fills my brow. It is as much imitation as the kisses on my hand or the way we act in public. It has the same energy as the crawling fingers over my bruises the longer he lingers.

"Imagine if you could just shake it off. Just shake off the worry. Just shake off love. And have control. Perfect control."

"Stop." It doesn't sound like a threat. It sounds weak. Like a whimper. A cry. A whining sound.

My fist is weak hitting his chest. It barely thumps on the soft fabric of his jacket.

"Stop being like this. I can't-"

The touch and the pain, the memories, and everything in me wants to float away, shutting off. The tips of my fingers feel numb. My lungs suck in hastily what little air stands still between us. I can't breathe. I can't breathe.

His arms push together over me, and it feels like his body will just absorb whatever is left of me.

With a sudden crushing sound, he winces. I stare at his arm, and in between the layers, where he wears the watch, a few drips of blood soak into his sleeve.

Evangeline wears a drifting mixture of metal on her head, it glitters around her throat in spikes and soft curves and ends above her shoulder in sharp swinging ends.

"Hands off."

"Not. Your. Business."

I finally manage to crawl out of his arm and take a step to distance myself. "I think Evangeline is just trying to teach you what I tell you all the time."

He moves his hand up and down, the metal bits have retracted. The traces of blood are still there. Evangeline just stares at it. My eyes still swim, and I snort and huff heaving breaths.

"Manners, anklebiter," she says.

If he was angry before, he is fuming now.

Atara keeps herself in the doorway, face nondescript. But Samson's eyes find her and they squeeze her together like he just squeezed my chest.

For a second, his brow furrows and she stutters back. Then she finds her footing again and stands tall, like she is on a rapport.

"You don't scare me," she says, blinking in blissful anger. "Have you seen my family?"

"You will. All of you will."

Evangeline looks like she wants to backhand him. For a moment she looks so much like Larentia I feel something ache.

Promises , promises. Empty? We will see. We all stare at the way he stomps away.

"Thank you." I push my palm over my cheek and pull the skin tight, swiping off a trace of water. "Thank you Evie."

"Atara came running to me like a chicken."

"Whatever," Atara answers, hand over her talon pendant. She doesn't look at either of us. And Evangeline doesn't look at her either. Beneath her, beneath me, Atara always had her place down there, and we kick her when we can.

"Thank you," I tell her.

"Whatever," she repeats. Then she leaves too. A curve of green in white floors.

* * *

In the preparations and processes, Atara doesn't cross my path. Neither does anyone else. So I take it up on myself to press on during the day and pull matters into our family hands. I try to find the right words to be truthful to the people that will deserve it. 

I don't know what the future will bring.

It scares me more than I want to admit.

And maybe a part of me wished I would have taken Samson's offer.

My father leaves me to my thoughts, he just silently takes a spot next to me and we both look at the night outside the window from the study.

In the grey between the two of us, the whole pack of bodies slumbers softly. A paw shifts, a foot kicks, and a tail wags, sometimes an ear twitches. But they all stay blissfully asleep, lulled in by two animosi on their chairs.

"We never have cats anymore," I tell him. "Adayne used to like them. When I was a child. There was that black cat with the bells."

My father narrows his eyes , trying to see through the clouds in the sky like an Eye predicting the future, just that he is seeing into the past. "I wasn't sure you'd remember the cat. You were so small."

I dare to remember him of it, only because I couldn't shake it off when I almost died. "It scratched her. That was the first time I controlled an animal. Why would I forget?"

"It was a vicious little beast some days," he shrugs. "Would hunt my birds. And fight the dogs if they came too close. The bells were a warning for any creature daring."

"I made the cat do it. It was never an accident. Even as a kid I wanted to lash out at others to gain attention. _It was the only way._ It still is, father. I am only good at hurting others, and I find satisfaction in it."

At my feet, One Ear howls belting in his sleep, ear tissues twitching again. He chases something. My father is silent for a while.

"I am a murderer of my kin, my brother even, Daliah. I can't judge anyone. And I will never judge you for reinstating yourself as an authority and holding your head high. You were molded and raised to do that. To protect Volo's children, to serve Larentia. Keeping yourself in check by offering to hunt down new bloods is in line with everything you were raised to do. You do what you have to."

Maybe he is right. I am not sure anymore. My voice is lost between the dreams of dogs yowling into the night. "How did you do kill him?"

"I had much time to plan it, and much more to think about it, especially with my progressing ruin, " He explains, so very poised and thoughtful. I used to think he is submissive, but he is not, he is patient and smart. He is shrewd under that skin of his, and something in me comes after that. I am his daughter. As much as I am denying to be my mother's. "I poisoned him, over the last years. Made him sweaty and short-breathed at first. Then I doubled the dosage. Until his heart gave up. Our scorpions are locked in for a reason."

A weak heart. A whisper. A marriage. Everything has been explained to death and lined up to fit by now. I lean on my hand, and for a moment the imaginary manacles weight me down. "I did something like that to my in laws."

"I know. But you weren't as careful. You did it just in spite and revenge, and you wanted to kill them quickly. Again, Daliah, I never judged you. I'm glad to have you back." And with that, he slowly stands up. His bones crack and he grimaces. One of the dogs wakes up at the notion and lifts the head. He shushes it back to sleep. "What happened with Elara Merandus had grand consequences. Even now, after the whole ordeal in Summerton is done for our family, after everything you did to keep in check with both the boy king and the magnetrons. Even now that Maven Calore has his price and we all wait for blood. We need to be careful. Power and Strength, daughter, I need you to be on your best."

Family is all that matters. I clasp my hand over my chest in a fist. "Power and Strength."

Despite the words and the creaking of his chair, he stands still. In the sea of grey light and bloodless lanterns dancing in white veins over West Archeon, he takes a small, amused breath.

"She told me to drown the cat in the river after it messed up her notes," he whispers. "She told me to feed it to the dogs and snakes. She didn't even want to look at the cat anymore. I didn't kill it, of course. I released it into the city. I'm pretty sure every stray cat in Archeon has a black cat as their ancestor these days. A royal line, if you want. Maybe that's a happy ending. At least it is free."

 _Free._ I taste it on my tongue. But my thoughts get lost in the night.


	38. Bonus: Atara -  Featherstone

_From: D. Viper, Archeron_

_To: A. Viper, Air Base , Barracks A1, Delphie_

_I have gotten the message that you are situated at the airbase and will start your training soon. Good luck, niece, if things go according to a timeline, you will be finished in a few months, give your best and don't disappoint. I hope you know I never meant you ill, even after the debacle with the family, so if you need anything, let me know, I will talk it out with your superiors._

_Best of wishes  
Uncle Deror_

* * *

_T_ he airbase is a long drawn line of buildings, cut in with open squares and diamond shapes of landing sites.

The fences are high, the air is cold, and everything is greying in silver metal or the colorless attire of most of the soldiers.

Day zero of my training has started now that I drag my haversack on one arm beside me.

For the first time in my life, I share a room with two other younger women. The nameplates and color-coded stripes placate them as telkie and greenwarden. On the day I arrive, the plant manipulator, dressed in a grey shirt, sneers at me. I see it as a good tone to smirk at her, head held high. It's a funny coincidence I share a room with someone that reminds me of my best friend. But she doesn't grow flowers for me. Instead, both of them just rattle down how I have to behave and how I keep my bed.

The room is naked without many personal belongings.

The telkie has a small frame standing beside her bed, cracked on one side. It looks like the frame has been flung around and smashed something before, and the image of a stone-faced family inside reminds me of my own dead mother and father.

The greeny has a potted flesh-eating plant stationed next to her, the only color that isn't grey.

I have nothing but the pendant of my talon and my clothes.

The air is filtered and dry, the beds are smaller, but everything is ultimately in quality shape. We are not red, and many of us come from good and stable upbringings, so our equipment, clothes, and barracks will always be better than one of than average or conscripted.

The food though is worse than home in the base. But only slightly, just a little more limited. The rest is more or less a similar schedule of embarrassment and anger.

My assignments are a long list pinned to my wall and stamped into my being with the loud voice of my superiors. Both are wind weaving weather manipulators and both have a few patches and ornaments set on their uniforms that tell their ranks and their house.

Both of them are relatively young.

The lieutenant is only slightly older than me, with bright clear eyes and a slight smile. He has short hair that it is shaved above his ears and neck in a precise dark line. He is taller than me. And he has a nice smile.

"I am excited to see your training progress, Viper, my father told me only good things about your talents."

I can hear the girls shushed voices almost from my memory, my own gossiping in. If this wasn't a military hierarchy, there'd be bets about who would be the first to sneak up on him, who he'd fancy, who would be brave enough and daring, mixes of excitement and shaming mockery.

But this IS a military structure and I am not unfitting or unbecoming.

So I salute him. "I will do my best, Sir."

And he reciprocates, still smiling at me. "I expect nothing less."

My other superior is less courteous. Everyone lovingly calls him Serge, because he is responsible for combat training and exercises.

I am very sure he doesn't like me, it becomes obvious as he pushes us together like a wolf pulls together sheep in a flock, wide-eyed and fresh, hastily polished to look acceptable. The yard training and drill moves are a physical ground that I know. Getting woken up too early is a little unnerving sometimes. I value longer napping times. There's no in-between breaks or long sleep-ins in the military, no drawn-out breakfast in our nightgowns and sleepy eyes. But I want to be here so I keep my mouth shut.

No one respects the new recruits. Respect is something you earn, not something someone gives you. Nothing in this world is for free. If you want them to see you, make them. Sometimes that means kicking someone, spiting someone, mocking someone.

People love to shit on each other.

You have to be solid and pretend that they can't shame or startle you.

You have to act like you are the best, even if you aren't.

Silvers don't accept weakness. We have a pecking order that is immaculate and close to birds.  
First males, then females, and old ones over young ones.

I am both female and young, so _tough luck_ for me. 

It is a lesson that I have learned before, and I learn it again with bruises on my back and a nasty swelling injury on my knee that makes me limp through the yard training. I feel the cracking of my patella when I fall. My face lands in the tickling small stones that shudder on the exercise course. Face in the dirt. I breathe in the grime. The pain flares under my cheeks in embarrassment.

Half of me expects someone to laugh, a nasty cutting sound. No one laughs.

"Viper, up!" The voice behind me just shouts, drilling. "Or do you want to maybe nap a little over there?! Maybe we can do your nails and you tell us a few stories about pretty dresses."

My skin heats up even more. I have a few long black hairs from my braid stuck in my mouth. I spit them out with a piece of asphalt.

He isn't evil for the sake of being nasty. He isn't like the girls I have grown up with. He is the same as every authority figure. His voice is only goading me because he wants to shape me. In this instance, he is right. This is a drill, a test, training, not a walk.

My legs hiss when I stand up. The dirt is all over my pants and shirt. I don't use my hands to wipe it off. I just shake my body while I move and hope it does anything. The fabric feels rough. It isn't a dress made of green silk, it isn't a gown that flatters me. It isn't a green-tinted, old armor that my family has owned for the traditions.

I wear a dirty uniform. Training gear.

My knee screams in pain, a fluctuation of an unwelcome sensation.

With a blink, I spit out a few more hairs and a little more dirt.

I remember days in the family yard and training room, shins getting kicked, hair pulled, fists flung.

I remember days hiding in the house after being mauled and beaten up by other girls, my face colored like a rotten plum. One time Evangeline Samos cut my cheek so deep I couldn't even feel the blood pouring out of it.

This? It is nothing against that shameful pain.

My leg cracks. I can't _bend_ it.

I still start to run again.

In front and behind me, the others have created an echo of synched steps. I don't know most of their names. I should have asked some. Should have already at least kept introducing myself. But I am not a nice person. I am bad at this.

My father used to say comrades are created by circumstances when allies are created by choice.

Many people don't choose me as their first. I am always outside and away. I am never the first choice. That used to hurt, but just like tears, you learn to blink it away and mostly accept it.

The only people that have ever chosen me are my brother and Heron. Unfortunately, my brother has become a stupid idiot. And she... She is far away.

Behind the buildings, a snapdragon lands with a roaring engine and wild flaring blades. The wind pushes the sounds over our heads.

_Five more rounds, this is nothing. Come on Atara._

"I think we should get a medic, Serge," the younger one of my superiors, I pass their boots, I do not stare at their faces. I need to focus on. I catch a glimpse of a pant leg, grey-colored shoes that are extremely well kept or new. The lieutenant sounds worried. It makes me almost look up in surprise. Not many people are worried about me. "Or maybe Skonos takes a look. Viper doesn't look good-"

Five more rounds. Now. The others have left me behind in the dirt of their boots. 

I can't let that stand.

Sweat pours down my neck. It soaks into my hair and down my throat. My braid is drenched in it. 

The pain is so bad I feel the impact of my knee cap shifting with every step. Half a round and water boils in my eyes. But just like I have hidden to cry every time I lost that session, or hidden when someone told me that I wasn't _pretty_ or _thin_ or _perfect_ enough, I hide it now. I pinch my eyes together so hard I only see black with white points swirling over the square open space.

"Nornus, Iral, Laris, four more rounds. Viper, stop."

My sight is black and ruined again. Echoing pain and pressed together lips, I stop.

Embarrassing enough, I haven't made it very far. I have barely scurried a bit past them calling me.

They wave me back over.

"Over here. What's with the leg?"

I limp over slowly and have no choice but to look at them. Serge is staring at me with a pushed together expression, I don't like that. He reminds me of my father turning angry or disappointed.

"Viper are you mad?" The lieutenants hand pushes through his short hair now as he looks at my swollen knee. It turns color to a deep grey and soft hue of blueish black. "Why didn't you ask permission to stop and get yourself taken care of?"

I don't want to be last. I don't want to go home. I want to stay here.

I want to learn how to fly.

I want to pilot any kind of jet.

I want to be anywhere but where my family is.

"I am sorry, Lieutenant," I say instead, pulling my body upward like a spear. It hurts. Bad. "I will immediately do so and then return to make up for the lost rounds."

"The fuck you return," my other superior grimaces. "You take the next hour off. Report back when you are patched up."

"To do what, if not run, Sir?" I ask. My voice sounds snide through the pain.

If he hears it he has mercy on me. His eyes are affixed to the injury. "We'll see. I hear you are already good at cleaning and assembling weaponry." His voice whistles loud and high over the field. "Hey! Move your sorry asses! Ladies, you make sure Viper doesn't blackout on the way. Carry her if you need to."

The bustling group parts and both girls I share the bunks with come strutting over.

My face must be as grey as my bruises. I feel the heat of the flush again. "No one needs to carry me, Sir."

"I let them decide that."

He spits out a muttered something before he leaves. The lieutenant looks still worried with a creased brow and lips pursed. He looks back before he retreats.

The girls stare at my leg.

"Shit," one of them mutters. "You ran with that?"

"It should pop back in by itself." I try to shrug it off, and she chuckles.

The telkie stares at my leg in a more calculated move. "I can just push you with my ability."

"Did you ever push a busted kneecap in?"

"I could try for you."

"No," the greeny shakes her head. "Sil, just let the physicians look at it. We don't want Viper to kick you with her good leg."

"Come on," the other stretches her arm out. "We carry you." 

And it sounds almost respectful. I feel very warm.

* * *

_From: D. Viper, Archeron_

_To: A. Viper, Air Base , Barracks A1, Delphie_

_Reports for your first week came in. I am glad to say everyone praises you. Congratulations Atara. The capital is slowly working itself into the new situation of Maven Calore being king. Your cousin Daliah has been seated and acknowledged officially as the heir of House Viper after your brother renounced his claims completely._

_I assume you read the news.  
_

_Best of wishes,_

_Uncle Deror_

* * *

I miss my brother. I miss him much more than I should- he was an asshole for the last year. 

I also miss my mother, a hole forever stamped into my heart. My father has left another gaping hole beside it, even if he has been rough and harsh. Lucky for me, life on a military base is so busy I can barely think about him, I can barely mourn. 

My days start at 0500 now and end at 2100. Breakfast, drill, lessons about flying, combat training, dinner , lights out.

And I am good at assaulting people in combat. I play fair first. Then I get cocky, and I loose. 

Fighting honourable, Lieutenant Laris calls it, commending me for it in a briefing talk about my progress after a theoretical flight lesson I master. 

"But what if this was an ambush? And not a comrade?" I ask him. "Would I die in honor?"

"As a pilot, you are incredibly much more worth than any foot soldier. You are not a front line fighter on the ground. But, in that case, if you cannot rely on orders and are in a dire combat situation, or in case you do not have the firepower or advatange as an aviator," he answers, sober. "I hope you get to survive in any way possible."

A fight down wherever I have to go, the Serge adds at my question, will be honorless, because neither Lakelanders nor rebels know what nortan honor means. 

"You still can have honor, Viper," he tells me, gruff. "But don't expect them to tell you to see a medic when you knee dislocates again."

"I never thought that'd be the case, Sir."

My comrades have nods if I one up them, and I have nods when they one up me. 

In the breaks, I sit down with either my roomates or any of the other recruits. They start to gather around me like my beloved crows. They watch me circle the very same over the sky, and then , after another week, they show me their secret hiding spot in the base.

In this harsh no nonsense world, flowers in bloom are unusual.

This ones are out of season. I soak in the smell of the yellow sunflowers, the tickling pollen of the bright blue and lilac cornflowers. Water boils and sinks into my eyes again, and I sniffle and choke on it. Heron's face swims in front of my eyes, a laughing mouth, big, friendly blue eyes. 

It hurts me in a wrong way to miss her, in a way that I am not supposed to think about a girl.

I shake it off as something buzzes over my shoulder. 

So many bees, bugs and even butterflies sit over the wall and chairs. I am not good with insects. But I want to make sure they stay safe now, because this is their own home. 

"It is nice, right?" my comrade asks. "It is quiet. It helps not to freak out."

"One day I found Serge here reading," the other says, and everyone snorts and snickers. I try to imagine the gruff figure in between the flowers , peaceful on a chair. "He threatened to discharge me if I tell anyone. We take turns on breaks. Now you know."

* * *

_From: D. Viper, Archeron_

_To: A. Viper, Air Base , Barracks A1, Delphie_

_Dear niece,_

_I congratulate you on your continued successes. The lack of personal answers to anyone is disconcerting, I assume it is a personal decision to speak yourself free from our family. I respect your decision to focus on your training and career. You chose this and I am not going to tell you that you cannot have it for now. I am sorry for what I had to take from you. You were always a good daughter and child._

_But you are still a Viper._

_Don't forget._

_Your uncle_

* * *

My uncle makes me angry.

His continued letters get on my nerves.

I don't have time to be worried about him.

He is a murderer, a criminal, and I hate him.

I want to hate the others too, but I can't. Something inside me knows how much I understand their pain, and I can't hate them for being what they are if that is what the pecking order has made of them.

My first flight hour, the moment of truth, happens right at the end of another week.

All the sirring buttons in the cockpit make me nervous first.

I think about being a bird in the sky. I collect my thoughts, breath in, and then I start to explain the process of starting the engine to my instructor.

My long hair starts to get on my nerves. It either gets stuck, untangles from the braid or it dangles in too heavyweight down my back. I can never wear it open because it is a long flood.

I have a helmet and a headset on now, during flight sessions. It presses against my lower skull and the nape of my neck. So I decide to get rid of it.

Parents stay dead. But at least hair and nails grow back relatively quickly.

* * *

_From: H. Welle, Welle Residence, Summerton_

_To: A. Viper, Air Base, Barracks A1, Delphie_

_Hello Atara,_

_I am sorry it took me so long to write to you! I hope this letter finds you in a good mood, and I hope you aren't having a too rough time._

_My family is still in Summerton, we are trying to clear out all the problems that have occurred in the region, and my father has started to lose his hair over the stress, I think._

_Nothing new for me. I am still only my old boring self studying agriculture. Nothing happens here. I am happy about that because everything in the country is talking about rebels assaults and the forces of our king decimating them._

_Please tell me that you have someone to talk to in Delphie. It must be hard all alone. I want to visit you as fast as I can make time, and I want you to know I think about you, all the time. You are my best friend and I love you, Atara, please stay safe._

_See you soon._

_Heron_

* * *

A tiny dried flower falls out of the envelope when I push it aside. A tiny white flower that makes my heart cramp together as I hold it, reading the last paragraph again and again.

This doesn't mean the same to her as it does to me- 'I love you' means not the same to her as it does to me.

For a second I try to imagine how it would sound if she said that, to my face, and how I would taste the words from her mouth. How her long arms would hold me, and I would have to push up and push HARD to kiss her, pressing my lips over hers, slightly gasping and breathing me in.

The fantasy fills my stomach with fire.

With a frustrated sound I try to suffocate myself with my stiff pillow.

I used to like boys. I had a crush on my dance partner the last year. I don't know what is different about her. And what is WRONG with me.

This is stupid.

She would never.

I am not supposed to like a girl this way. This doesn't lead to anything. This is just..another stain on the record. Being in love with someone that calls me their best friend.

If I like boys at least, I can fulfill some statuary quote. Maybe I can even one day be with one that I want to marry.

When I keep making sounds, screaming into my pillow, my roommates both catch up to me, one sitting on my bed.

I don't tell them that I am pretty sure I will never love anyone again, and this is the most stupid fantasy that I had since the day that I imagine I could be a Princess and be better than my cousins.

* * *

_From: A. Viper, Air Base, Barracks A1, Delphie_

_To: H. Welle, Welle Residence, Summerton_

_Heron,_

_I hope I will see you again soon. Don't worry about me. I have made friends with my comrades and roommates. I am learning to pilot different jets. I learn to shoot missiles. I learn to be a better fighter._

_I love you too, you are my best friend too. Stay safe._

_Atara_


End file.
